


symbiosis

by uselesscreature



Category: The Owl House (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Medium Burn, No Smut, PLEASE read the author note on ch 1, Post Grom, Two POVs, amity likes luz but shes a blight, eda is a great aunt and lilith.... tries :)))), i think so, luz likes amity but theres earth, would this technically count as
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 31,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25902925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uselesscreature/pseuds/uselesscreature
Summary: An experiment gone wrong causes Luz and Amity to feel and share each other’s pain, but pain isn’t just physical…[Read tags]
Relationships: Amity Blight/Luz Noceda
Comments: 412
Kudos: 2709





	1. Day 1

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy, howdy! I am the author, please call me Ayala and not Useless cus I WILL cry ;-;  
> Very!!! Important!!!!! -- Please look at beginning notes for the following:  
> \- content warnings (most notable being: psychological abuse, physical abuse, anxiety, xenophobia in later chapters. no smut in this fic)  
> \- announcements! usually for hiatuses (planning to move next year early/late spring, and i work 60-70hrs a week) or links to people's fanart of the fic (if u do fanart, please send the link in the comments section)  
> \- quick descriptions for certain words that are rather scientific (chapter one wont have any cus the characters explain it to you)
> 
> Look at the end notes for the following:  
> \- A possible link to a playlist that goes with this fic (idk,,, let me think abt it lmao)  
> \- Translations from Spanish to English (no, I dont speak spanish but I'll use my friends who do)
> 
> I'll update when I feel like it. Please do NOT beg me for an update. 
> 
> Now, without further ado, Let's get spicy ;)))

“So, hold on, let me get this straight, okay,” Luz swivels her seat. She’s looking at Gus and Willow, who are both running around grabbing bottles of potion mixes that she… really has no idea what they’re used for. “Plants are living things.”

“Mhm,” Willow casually replies.

See, that much Luz knew about, but the rest of it was still jumbled up in her head. “And when – I don’t know – we do something like cut them or tear off their branch, they release a scent meant to indicate danger?”

“Precisely,” Gus nods as he scribbles notes into his notebook.

“And plants can’t feel pain because of their lack of umm,” Luz gestures wildly with her hands, trying to find her words, “pain receptors?”

Gus takes that moment to glance over to Luz. “They’re called nociceptors, but yes. Pain receptor is a valid term.”

“And don’t forget,” Willow pours something pink and something green, causing a fizzy effect to bubble within the glass bottle she's holding. She yelps and sets the bottle to the side. “We don’t know if plants can’t feel pain. If they can react to the sensation of touch and send out a warning bell for other plants when they are harmed, then that means they must feel something.”

Luz nods. She leans her arm against the seat's armrest. “That makes sense, but what’s the experiment for?”

“The hypothesis of the experiment is to connect the subject’s nociceptors – the ports – to a plant’s sensory hairs – the host – to understand whether or not plants can feel some sort of sensation relating to pain,” Gus speaks more to himself than to Luz. He taps the eraser end of his pencil against his lips. “It doesn’t have to be the same kind of pain _we_ feel, but it could be immense pressure.”

“What does that mean?” She’s getting confused now.

“It means, do they still feel it if we step on them or cut them or something like that. Think of it like… being slowly crushed by rocks versus being stabbed.”

“That sounds like it hurts,” Luz thins her lips.

“Exactly,” Gus grins, “but it’s a different kind of pain.”

Nope. Now, she’s absolutely lost.

Science and plants aren’t exactly her forte. She never did pay attention in school back on Earth, but then again, Earth was just a little too boring for her. They didn’t have potions, or magic, or witches. But, she does know some parts of the Boiling Isles are almost similar to Earth’s. So, that means plants must work the same.

But it still doesn’t answer her question… “But _why_ are we doing this?” Luz throws her hands out to point at the experiment.

“Because my dad only eats plants.”

“Oh,” Luz perks up, “he’s vegetarian?”

Willow pauses for second. “What’s a vegetarian?”

“Someone who eats just plants. It’s what we call them back on Earth.”

“Huh… we don’t really have a name for it, but that’s interesting. Anyway,” Willow stars back up again. “The reason for eating vegetables over meat is understandable. Dad doesn’t want to hurt any creature. The idea of causing pain bothers him, especially if he doesn’t know if the animal is okay with it. So, he eats plants.”

“But,” Luz crinkles her brows, “if plants feel pain, then –”

“Then he would try to be a fungerian,” Willow shrugs.

“Fung..erian?”

“Mushroom eaters. We have mushrooms here that give the same nutrients as plants and meats. They’re just harder to come by. Aaand,” Willow starts to sing, “I’m done!”

Luz stands up from her seat to approach their mixing station. Inside the bottle is a pink liquid with glitter that looked like rainbows. It shifted and changed under the light of the sun, appearing almost chromatic. Luz isn’t going to lie… That potion looked delicious.

It was like watching lava videos back on Earth. The desire to swim in the forbidden liquid just haunts her mind.

“Do you think it’ll work?” Willow glances over to Gus.

Gus looks over his notes, flipping from page to page. “We have a sixty-three percent chance of it succeeding and a thirty-six percent chance of it failing.”

For some reason, Luz managed to add it together in her head. “Wait, what about the extra one percent?”

“Miscellaneous results in which we tamper with the concoction and inevitably lead us to a situation far beyond our control,” Gus shrugs, “but it’s a one percent chance. What’s the worst that could happen. Now,” he clasps his hands together, “who wants to be a test subject?”

Almost _immediately_ Luz’s hand shoots upward, high into the air. The situation makes sense to her. Her friends make the potion, and she’s the one who gets to have all the scientific fun. Besides, what’s the worst that could happen? If anything went South and the potion fails, there’s no wrong thing that could happen.

With that said, Willow pours the mixture into a spray bottle before screwing it shut. She lifts it up and sprays Luz with it.

The aroma hits her like a freight train.

Luz hacks up she breathes it into her throat. “Oh, what _is_ that?!”

“Sorry, sorry,” Willow snickers, “I should have warned you that Pink Blaires have a strong odor.”

“P-pink Blaires?” Luz grabs her throat as she swallows.

“Berries used in potion mixing. It helps stabilize the formula and turn impurities into gas. I added it in because the berry’s juices helps synapses bounce off from one to the other. Students use it so they can focus better in school, and it also helps with love potions.”

“Wait, there are love potions?” Luz blinks. “Wow, that’s so cool!”

“Yes, but uhh,” Gus rubs the back of his head, “they are _extremely_ illegal.”

“What’s illegal?”

The new voice causes the teens to jump, and Luz grins as she sees Eda flying towards them with a staff. She graceful drops down from it, expertly whirling her staff onto her hand as she did so. Thing is, Eda looks disheveled and battle-worn. Her gray hair sticks out in certain places and there are a few scuffs on her skin. But, judging by her grin, nothing too bad happened.

However, Luz’s excitement jumps when she suddenly noticed someone else besides Eda.

Someone with green hair and golden eyes.

“Amity!” Luz rushes towards her with open arms, and before Amity could react, Luz is lifting her off the ground. Her friend’s cheeks tint into a shade of red as she flicks Luz’s nose with her finger. “Ow,” Luz winces.

“Personal space, idiot.” Usually, Luz would find some sort of threat to her voice. Amity is just snappy and fiery like that. But, when she sensed nothing but affection, Luz laughs.

That’s when she feels something zap her whole body. She thinks Amity felt it too, because she physically flinches in her arms. A sudden warmth floods Luz’s chest, and the desire to just hold Amity in her arms strengthened. It’s like double the dose she would feel whenever Amity’s around, or whenever it’s just her and Amity alone together.

The last she felt this was during Grom when Amity complimented her suit tutu.

Suddenly, Amity’s hugging her back, and the warmth of her breath tingles her shoulder.

It’s Amity who pulls back first. “Eda,” she narrows her eyes towards the owl lady, “what illegal activities are you teaching her?”

“What? What’s this got to do with me?” Eda crosses her arms, raising a brow at Amity. “Ugh, Blights. Always pointing the finger.”

“Well, seeing as though it was _your_ fault I had to rescue you from a Beagle today,” Amity growls, “it seems pretty fair that I should blame you for this one too.”

“A beagle?”

“Body of a bear, head and wings of an eagle. Wretched creatures but they offer plenty of coin for it,” Eda winks at Luz before crossing her arms at Amity. “If you’re wondering how much of a cut you're getting? You’re only getting five percent.”

“ _What_?” Amity takes her hands off of Luz to point a sharp finger at Eda, “I deserve twenty.”

“Ten,” Eda fires back.

“Seventeen.”

Then, there’s a grin on the old woman’s face. “fifteen and not a coin more.”

“Fine.”

Eda cackles. “Ha, finally, a Blight that knows how to negotiate. Anyway,” Eda thumps her staff against the ground, “you understand that brewing anything besides a Synapse potion and a Pink dye potion with Pink Blaire berries are illegal, right? And, where in the Boiling Isles did you even get these?”

Willow and Gus look at each other before turning to Luz. Luz touches her pointer fingers together. “Uh… from Bitsy?”

“ _Bitsy_?” Eda’s voice strains slightly.

“and I uhh… used your coin.”

“ _My_ coin _?!_ ” Luz bit her lip as Eda’s face twists. For a second, Luz thinks she’s in trouble for the first time in a while since her stay at the Boiling Isles….

But, Eda sighs her frustration away and grumbles something along the lines of ‘these dumb kids’. Eventually, she waves it off and gives Luz a gentle smile. “Look, definitely proud of the resourcefulness and the breaking of law, but don’t take from the hand that feeds you. Clear?”

She suddenly feels small. She kicks the dirt with her feet. “I’m sorry, I-I’ll pay you back, I promise.”

“ _We’ll_ ,” Willow adds in, “pay you back.”

Eda sighs, “Eh, it’s only what? Five coins for a pound?”

“T-ten. We had to buy a bottle of Berette mix too,” Willow says with darkening cheeks.

Eda sighs again. “Man, having kids costs you a crap ton of money, but hey, it’s a crap ton to pay for a child’s curiosity. Alright then, let’er rip! Let me see the results of your hard work!”

Luz grins. She heads to the plant, glancing at Willow and Gus who gives her the thumbs up. Luz reaches for the plant, rubbing her thumb and forefinger on one of its leaves. She waits for a second, and another, and another. When nothing happens, she looks to the duo.

She shakes her head.

Willow and Gus groan.

“A failure.” Gus tosses his notebook to the side. “Dang it… Maybe we need to change the solution for the potion. Or maybe the boiling temperature? I don’t know there’s too many variables and too little control groups.”

Amity walks closer towards them then. “Making your own recipe for a potion will take months. Years, even. The Witch Wood potion took twenty-eight years to make.”

“All those years just for a potion that would make paper stick to a wall,” Eda shakes her head. “Well, I’m going to take my beauty sleep. If you kids need coin for more ingredients? Don’t ask me. Steal from people and take care of your own problems like adults.”

“Wow, you are _nothing_ like Lilith,” Amity says curtly.

“I’ll take the compliment, Blight. See ya, kids.” Eda walks away then.

Willow takes the potion into her hand, eyeing it curiously. Gus picks his notebook back up. “I’ll take the rest and save it as a prototype. This’ll work someday, I just know it…

“I know we’ll be able to perfect it!” Gus excitedly says.

Luz turns to Amity as her friends babble on. “Wait, so what are you doing here? Eda didn’t want to fly you back home?”

Amity shrugs. “She offered, but I needed to ask if I could borrow your Azura book again. There’s a scene there that I want to draw, but I-I’m not too sure if I have the character’s designs right.”

“Oooh, fanart!” Luz says excitedly.

Amity laughs, and it sounds like music to Luz’s ears. Why is Amity suddenly acting a lot more… affectionate? “I know. Maybe I can draw a piece for your fanfic one day?”

Her gasp could probably be heard a mile around them. “No _way_ , are you serious? Amity that would mean so much to me! I know you don’t ship my ship, but… _wow_ ,” Luz squeals, “aaah, thank you!”

That sudden warmth that filled Luz’s chest returns, but this time, she feels a sudden need to hug Amity again. She doesn’t do it, of course. Amity is pretty sensitive about her space, and she didn’t want her friend to feel uncomfortable.

Ever since Grom, part of Luz has been curious to the sides of Amity that she didn’t show. That gentler side of her. She didn’t want to see Blight – there are things that come with that name, that for some reason, Luz thinks Amity didn’t want to be part of. Luz wanted to see Amity as _Amity_ – the girl who loves reading and drawing Azura.

The one who yearns for a connection.

The one who wants someone to see past her shell.

The one who really, truly, cares about her friends and would rather push them away herself than leave it up to her family.

The one who –

Wait… did she always know Amity _this_ well?

Luz isn’t good at observing.

She didn’t even think that the note meant anything, up until it was ripped by Amity’s fear. That had been the only time she realized that must have meant something, and the everything that led up to that point suddenly made sense.

But Luz knew she’s can’t have been observant enough to realize this herself.

Then again, maybe she’s not giving herself enough credit.

Maybe having friends is teaching her how to be more considerate.

“Okay, I’ll go get the book for you, just hang tigh – _woAH!_ ” She trips over her own feet and falls to the ground. At the moment – _and she honestly doesn’t know how_ \-- Luz catches the ground with her hand. She feels the sting of rock under her palm and hisses at the sharp pain.

“ _Luz_ ,” Amity’s concern is evident. When Luz looks up from her position to meet Amity’s golden eyes creased with worry. Amity hand on Luz’s shoulder _burned_. “Can you be more careful!? Ugh, how can you waltz, but _not_ be able to walk properly…”

“What happened?” Willow yells, immediately putting down the potion and dropping her conversation with Gus.

Before they could run over and help though, Luz raises her hand to stop them.

“I-I’m okay, I’m okay!” Luz scrabbles back up on her feet. Embarrassment filled her lungs, but she shrugs it off. “Look, see? I can walk. I’m fine.”

Amity stares at her before letting herself smile. “Clutz,” she says as she raises a hand to hide her smile.

“Look, sometimes, I just –" She catches it when she noticed a red smear, contrasting Amity’s ivory skin. It takes her a second to realize it, but the moment she does, she takes Amity’s hand and pats the blood with her hoodie. “You’re bleeding! How and when did you get hurt?”

Amity glances at her nursed hand. “Oh… must have been during the Beagle fight. I’ll be okay, it’s just a scratch.”

“Heh,” Luz stupidly grins at her, “I guess we’re both a clutz, huh?”

“Sh-shut up,” Amity snatches her hand from Luz’s hold, “get the book so I can leave, please? Being around you gives me a headache.”

“Is it because you can’t stop thinking about me?” Luz flutters her eyes and winks.

“Yes,” it catches her off guard at first. “Because I can’t stop thinking about punching you in the face. Now get the stupid book, or I’ll fix that stupid door décor of yours –” she means hooty, and she could tell by her snarl “— another knuckle sandwich.”

“OH, say no more,” Luz raises her hands. “I’ll go ahead and uh, get it.”

She runs over to the owl house, heart beating loudly in her chest. It always happens around Amity, and it always happens when her words bite a little harder than usual. There’s something about their banter that reminds Luz of her Azura OTP, and she knows that Amity is in a territory Luz hasn’t thought of since she was ten.

 _Crushes_.

Luz shakes her head.

She digs through her storage box for the book, but she pauses right before she grabs it by the spine. Something red started dripping from her palm. She turns her hand over and notices scrape.

“Huh, must have been from the fall.”

Luz thinks nothing of it. She wipes it with a tissue before finally taking the book and running out of the house.


	2. Day 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s good to know before one dives head-first into this fic, that this fic is a medium burn. But since I’m heavily into angst, please mentally prepare yourself for when I slap it onto a chapter. Thank you, have a great day. <333 
> 
> Let me know if there are any mistakes. Im too busy and impatient to check for it. Next chapter should drop Monday (if I have the time LMAO)

Amity isn’t careless.

She’s quite the opposite, actually. She walks with grace, her head held up high, and her eyes forward. Every single one of her movement is purposeful, and not a single bit of her energy is wasted on any needless movement. She always sticks to one side of the bed – which has proven to be a problem sometimes because of an obvious dip. Amity doesn’t fiddle. She doesn’t react. She doesn’t speak unless it’s worth her time.

Unless it’s Luz, then she really doesn’t really care too much.

Amity aims to reserve her energy for things that really call for it, and _that_ is what makes her perfect.

So why and how in witch’s sake is she suddenly getting all these cuts and bruises?

It started off with a sucker punch she felt out of literally _nowhere_. She had been spending time with Boscha, drinking tea and reading her usual genre of books. In the middle of flipping to another page, she feels a sharp jab on her ribs. She sucked in a breath loud enough to actually stop Boscha from talking.

_“Are… you alright?”_

“ _Y… yeah, just… Excuse me.”_

She ran off to the nearest bathroom and checked her side, and right before her had been a purple mark with a peculiar sharp edge to it. Part of her figured it was just from abomination class, but the more sensible part of her knew that Amity hadn’t ran into anything or anyone.

Even _if_ she had, why did it only hurt now?

The second one appeared as a cut on her hand. Amity had been working on sewing the little stuffed animals she made when it happened; a cut started forming on the back of her hand. It was shallow, and it only bled a little. Amity shrugged it off easily, but when the third injury happened, she _knew_ she wasn’t going crazy.

Something or someone had burned her forearm. Not to a crisp or anything like that, but in the middle of dinner with her family, her arm suddenly stung. Bad enough to drop her plate of food. Her parents scolded her for it.

And it’s as if the random injuries aren’t enough. Suddenly, out of nowhere, in the middle of the night, Amity felt a need to call her mother.

It wasn’t want.

It wasn’t desire.

She _needed_ to call her mother.

The pressure in her chest gets unbearable sometimes. It’s not like getting the air knocked out of her lungs, it’s more like a slow build-up of weight just pressing down on her chest. Like as if she’s being crushed by the weight of _something_ nonmaterialistic. Some sort of regret, perhaps? Some sort of guilt? Maybe a lie she had told her mother?

But _what_? And why _just_ her mother? Why not her father?

Amity had to call a foul on the fourth night she had to deal with this.

She’s losing sleep because of this, and she is running out of possible answers.

“What are you doing, darling?”

Her exhaustion is immediately pushed away, and within its place, anxiety steps in.

Amity Blight isn’t careless, but right in front of her own parents, she had just broken one of the rules she shouldn’t do at the table –

She leaned her head against her arm.

“I’m sorry, mother. I haven’t been getting enough sleep lately,” she answers honestly, picking her fork back up to prod at her breakfast. She doesn’t dare meet their eyes, but her parents do _not_ appreciate lack of eye contact. She stares at their foreheads instead.

Her mother, hair teal as her twin siblings and eyes yellow like the sun, winds her fingers together as she smiles. “Your excuses are getting rather predictable, Amity.” Her mother holds up her hand, letting a finger uncurl as she counts “First, you’re in trouble because of a human. Then, it’s cheating at a witching duel because of a human. Gave the Grom Queen title to the human and you even decided to dance with this very _same_ human. And now, you’re losing sleep.”

Amity is sure the fork she held bent from how tightly she gripped it.

“Is it because of the human, Amity?” Her mother ended in a singsong.

“N-no –”

“Amity.” She clenches her jaw when her father calls her name. _Just breathe_ , she tells herself as she turns to look at him. His face is thin and long, his beard trimmed neatly and even combed to perfection. He looks more like a principal than her father. “Speak up. Blights do not mumble.”

Everything blurs slightly. And she feels as though she can’t breathe. Was she breathing?

“I said,” the voice came out soft, so she tries again. Amity steels herself this time. “I said no. This is not because of the human. I simple haven’t been focused. Sleep is evading me.”

Her parents both narrow their eyes at her. Another lecture is brewing between their thin lips, but luck is in her favor this time.

Emira scrapes her fork against her plate. Another rule in the Blight household, and Amity knows this is Emira’s way of getting heat off of Amity’s back. Edric does something similar, but he’s a lot more subtle about it.

“ _Emira_ , do not scrape your fork. You should be old enough to know this,” Their father tells Emira, his voice is soothing for all the wrong reasons.

“My bad,” Emira shrugs. Her eyes fall to Amity for a moment, and Amity takes that opportunity to smile at her as a thank you.

She may not get along with her siblings too well, but they are each other’s lifelines. Where the twins fall short, Amity takes it home. It works just as well the other way around.

Amity thinks Edric and Emira as pests. A little too much to deal with, a little too rebellious, and a little too reckless for the Blight name – most likely the reason why her parents are so focused on shaping Amity’s entire life. Still, however she may feel, her siblings are also her guardians against some of her parents’ wrath. She’s thankful of that.

“Back to the topic at hand,” her father turns back to Amity. Only a trickle of his passive anger is left in his tone. “If this is a consistent issue, take the necessary precautions. There are lavender bottles to relax you, but I expect that you do not overindulge yourself.”

“Yes, father. I understand,” Amity speaks with a slight nod.

She gets to Hexside within the next hour.

But things only get odder there.

She’s at the lockers with Boscha and Skara, talking about the newest gossip about the students at Hexside.

Something about the Vinch family scandal that exposesd them to the public eye. Apparently, their eldest daughter – the heir to their potion brewing business – was caught buying cheaper products from the black market. Which is a problem to Skara’s family because her parents buy the dyes for their brand name products. This exposure just affects other companies like an electric web.

Amity blanked out of most of it, though. Her mind is a little too preoccupied with her latest dilemmas.

That, and for some reason she felt the need to find Luz.

She thinks it’s just her… well… _crush_ … on the human, but this is more like a gnawing sense that Luz might not be feeling too well.

When she notices Willow and Gus without Luz, that’s when Amity makes the choice. She excuses herself from the gossip and heads right toward Willow.

“Hey,” she greets them with a little wave.

“Amity, hey!” Willow greets her back with a polite smile. The kind of smile Amity has missed for years now. “You’re ah… talking to us. That’s… that’s odd, usually you just stay with your friends, and uh, ignore us.”

Amity crosses her arms, arching a brow. “Would you like me to walk away?”

“No!” Willow panics.

“Yes,” Gus says. Amity knows it’s a joke. Is it a joke?

“Gus, shush!” Willow shoves him slightly. He only groans and rolls his eyes. “Sorry. Umm, did you need anything?”

“I’m looking for Luz. Where did she go?”

Willow nods over to the bathrooms. “She’s in the bathroom. But, um, I’d be careful.”

“Why?”

“She’s not as spunky as usual,” Gus answers this time. He shares a look with Willow before sighing, “we think it might be the effects of Prototype A. The Blaire Berries’s effect must have worn off, so her brain circuits are fried.”

Nodding, Willow agrees with his statement. “Yeah, she’s been hyper for the last five days, and then,” she forms an exploding effect with her hands. “Energy’s gone. She also looked scared for some reason.”

“Scared?” Amity’s curiosity spikes.

“I guess a better word would be anxious. We don’t know. We tried asking her, but she insists that she’s fine.”

Amity curls her fist. She thanks Willow and Gus for the information before heading over to the bathrooms.

It’s empty. Aside from Luz, who’s hiding in one of the stalls. She could see a foot bouncing erratically, while the other one’s still.

Amity’s gentle when she enters the bathroom. Each step is light as a feather; as if she’s walking on thin ice. Once she’s in front of the stall door, she sucks in a breath.

“Luz?”

No answer.

Amity sighs. She leans her weight against the stall door and looks at the black polish of her nail. “Classes start in a few minutes. Are you okay?”

One second, two, three… “Y-yeah, I’m fine. You should head to class, Amity! I’m just having… really bad diarrhea. Like, woah…”Amity allowed herself to roll her eyes at Luz’s attempt at a lie. Even a child can do better than that. “I think the breakfast Eda gave me had milk.”

What a stubborn brat.

“Don’t try to lie to me, it’s not going to work,” is all Amity says.

It’s in that moment that Amity suddenly feels a spike of warmth in her chest along with something colder than the winds in the North. Two contradicting forces, trying to oust the other one out. An imbalance.

A parasite to each other, almost. Leeching off each other’s energy.

She closes her eyes and feels her way through it.

Luz is stupidly brave. Amity knows that much. She’s caring, loving, energetic, and denser than the most expensive cauldron in the Boiling Isles. Luz is a protector; Luz is a defender; Luz will do just about anything to protect the people she cares for and loves, even if that means putting herself in a position she can’t get out of.

She did it for Willow, she did it for Amity, and she’d do it over and over again if she needed to.

Luz is brave.

Luz is also fearful.

Amity likes that about her. It’s what Amity likes about her the most.

The warmth in her chest begins to wash over the damning cold. Amity creaks her eyes open when she hears Luz shuffle from inside the stall.

“Okay, I’m coming out.”

Amity steps aside and out comes Luz.

She looks a little roughed up. Her hair is slightly kinked to the center than the right. There are dark circles under her eyes, and her uniform was tussled and messy. It’s stupid, she knows, but a rougher look on Luz is… quite attractive.

Her cheeks tint red, but she shrugs it off to check on her priority.

She knows Blaire berries very well. It is her go to supplements whenever she needs an extra boost to stay awake. Every now and then she’d take a little more than necessary, but the result of doing something as dumb as that is a fatigue that lasts a little over two days – and Luz _definitely_ shows all the symptoms of one worn out kid.

In the gentlest way possible, Amity raises her hands to straighten out Luz’s uniform. Luz’s only response to that was a grumble and a flutter of those tired eyes. Amity pats her cheek lightly, and her patient comes back to life. “You should head home and rest,” Amity tells her, “I’ll bring you your notes and maybe some soup to –”

 _Ah_.

Whatever else she had to say was gone. Deleted. Erased.

Luz’s head landed right on her shoulder, and they stood there. Just like that.

“Wh… what are you doing?” She hates the way her voice wavers in the sentence.

“Recharging. Just… give me a minute… huh, you smell really nice.”

You know, Amity’s glad that Luz can’t see her right now. _How can this girl just say things like that and not realize the effects of it?_

“Do you really think I’m a liar?” Luz asks quietly.

This is an extremely odd behavior. This self-doubt… It almost reminds Amity of her own insecurities. The same problems she’s currently battling quietly within herself. Self-worth is a tricky subject; Lilith tries to remind her.

“Wow,” Amity snorts, “Luz Noceda? Doubting herself? There’s a first for everything.”

She hears a breathy chuckle. “Willow thinks I’m crashing from the potion’s effects. I haven’t been sleeping very well.”

“Hm, neither have I. Are Willow and Gus feeling the same symptoms?”

“Nope,” She pops the ‘p’, “not even Eda.”

Amity thinks back to the day they tested the potion. She keeps her arms _anchored_ to her sides. There’s a desire to hold onto Luz, but she is not about to make herself out to be clingy. Especially after their hug five days ago when…

Wait.

“You hugged me as soon as you saw me. Maybe physical contact made me feel the same things you’re feeling?” Amity carefully pushes Luz to stand up on her own. She then turns to the sink and wets her fingers.

She makes the brash decision to run her hand through Luz’s hair once or twice. Just to fix the cow lick.

Definitely, just to fix the cow lick.

“Maybe, but I also touched Willow after that and didn’t –” Luz yawns “—wash my hands.”

“Weird. We really need to get you practiced on potions safety.”

“I also started having these weird like…” Luz tries to find her words. She made a face – pursing her lips, crinkling her brows, and squishing her nose – whenever she really tried to get her head to work. “brain thingies… What on Earth are they called?”

Amity bites her lip, still working her way through Luz’s hair. “Thoughts?”

Her brown eyes sparkle, “Yeah! I’ve been having thoughts like… I don’t know. Back on Earth, I didn’t really have any friends. I thought, maybe everyone just didn’t like me, which I mean… yeah okay. Or that it’s because of my mom, or because of my dad. Things I used to think about before, but usually there are other things keeping me up at night. Not… these!”

“Well, it’s normal to blame your parents for certain things. I do that,” Amity tries. She starts to lower her hands from Luz’s head, but Luz catches them before she does so.

“No, no, but here’s the thing, Ames.” _Ames?_ Amity does a double take at the nickname. “My dad died a long time ago. Why would I be blaming him?”

Amity opens her mouth to say something about that, but they’re interrupted by the bathroom door whooshing open.

Her instinct takes over.

The events went as followed – the door opens, Amity shoves Luz backwards, Luz is caught off guard and off balance, Luz falls over, Luz hits her head against the dividers of the stalls, and Amity feels a blunt sting on the back of her own head.

“OW!” Both girls yelp.

The silence that passes soon after is an awakening for Amity. The final piece of clue she needs to figure out this damned puzzle.

A rather rude awakening that caused Willow – the person who entered the bathroom – to rush over to aid Luz. Willow’s yelling at Amity, but Amity’s head is in the stratosphere right now, trying to build together a narrative for their current situation.

The potion, if she understood correctly, was made to allow a normal citizen to share their pain receptors with plants so that plants could tell use whether or not they feel pain. The potion was poured onto Luz’s hands, and Amity came right before they could test it out. The first thing Luz did upon seeing Amity was throw her into a hug.

Amity was Luz’s first contact. Not the plant.

Amity is missing her mom — someone she didn’t really care too much about — for no reason whatsoever. Feeling remorse for something she hadn’t done. And Luz is feeling anger towards both her parents despite the fact that her father is out of the picture.

The potion.

“It’s the potion,” Amity mumbles.

“W…what?” Willow angrily scoffs. “What do you mean –”

“ _Your_ potion Willow,” Amity growls, “it didn’t connect Luz to the plant, it connected Luz with _me_.”

Luz shakes her rather thick head. “What…?”

“Th-the emotions, the sleepless nights we’ve been having?” Amity paces in the bathroom, “Luz, did you hurt yourself somewhere on your ribs about two days ago?”

“Uhh,” Willow helps Luz get up, “yeah, King tackl hugged me, and his little boney head left a pretty bad bruise.... Wait, how do you –”

She likes Luz _a lot_.

But sometimes, she really is just plain stupid.

“Luz, we’re bonded. That’s what the potion did.” Amity nearly laughs when she scoffs. Her hand rises to comb through her green hair, “I can feel your pain, and I’m pretty sure you can feel mine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I too would shove my crush if someone almost walks in on us being too close w to one another in the bathroom.
> 
> Kudos, comments, and bookmarks are appreciated.
> 
> EDITT::: 
> 
> me: posts a fic  
> also me: edits fic 50x to correct grammar


	3. Day 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you hadn't noticed, the title of the chapters = how many days since the potion incident.
> 
> Next chapter will drop on Wednesday/Thursday. I’m working :p sorry my dudes.  
> Anyway, enjoy the chapter. Let me know what you think!
> 
> EDITTT::::: chapter 4 date drop change. it’ll now drop on Sunday. im super hungover bbys. i sorry

Something odd had been affecting Luz the past few days.

Here’s the thing – Luz isn’t the type to dwell on the harsher parts of life. Back in the human world, she was often picked on and ignored for being her weird and unusually hyper self. It bothered her sometimes – all she wanted to do was make friends, after all – but after some time, she grew a sort of armor around it. If anyone didn’t want to be friends with her, she’d let it go.

Amity had been an exception to that.

Had Amity turned her away, Luz wouldn’t take it too well, and she doesn’t understand why that is.

Luz is great at forgiving and forgetting.

Having a new life in Hexside fixed all of that. Now, she had Willow, Gus, Amity, Viney and co, and even Skara’s starting to open up to the idea of her.

But for some odd reason, she’s been feeling a little less social. She wanted to throw herself into her bedroom, lock the world out, and either read a book or listen to music. Willow was the first to notice the behavior – even offering Luz an open line to talk about their problems. The second person was Eda, who simply asked Luz if she was feeling okay after Luz burnt her arm against a boiling pot of soup.

It wasn’t just her sudden introverted behavior that started concerning her.

For some reason, she started feeling this anger. Anger towards her own mother who wanted to throw Luz into camp just because she was a little too much of an odd ball for the real world. Anger that her father would have just agreed with her mother on which direction Luz’s life should go. It got so bad that Luz didn’t reply to her mother’s goodnight text that same night.

The next morning, her guilt set in.

Why would she _ever_ think her mother would do that?

Her mother loved her, and she was only thinking of what she thought was best for Luz at the time. Even though Luz didn’t like the idea of camp, she knew her mother was well-intentioned.

Luz refused to put the phone down the following night.

She tapped away, staying a little over one in the morning just to send her mother a lengthy paragraph of how much she missed her and loved her. Luz spared no detail and even went off the rails to tell her that she couldn’t wait to tell her that camp was going great.

And Luz... she didn’t hit send.

Instead, she sighed, erased the block of words, and replaced it with a heart emoji.

It hit her the _worst_ today, though.

Something combusted in her head. Something loud and something new. She feels her body freeze and her heart slamming wildly against her chest. It felt suffocating, like two hands pushing down on her shoulders. A shadow of a man and a woman whispering hurtful things into her ear –

_Does it feel good lying to your family? Does it feel good knowing you’ve grown up to become such a liar? Don’t you feel imperfect?_

It echoed and bounced off in her head, escalating before dissolving into nothing and leaving as quickly as it had arrived. The feeling left her vulnerable. Extremely vulnerable. Her mind only snapped back to real life when Eda called for her attention.

Talking to Willow and Gus didn’t feel right either.

She excused herself to the bathroom right then.

That’s when Amity arrived, and it felt like one half of her soul was brought back to her.

And maybe that’s exactly what had happened because according to Amity, Willow’s potion _did_ work… but not in the way they anticipated it.

Amity immediately called Lilith the minute she found out, and Lilith immediately contacted Eda since she is _technically_ Luz’s legal guardian, but for some reason, she didn’t think to call Amity’s parents despite being such a stickler to rules. Willow and Gus offered to stay, but they were asked to head back home.

Now, they’re in the Owl House, Luz and Amity sitting on the couch as Lilith and Eda hash their indifferences out.

“Edalyn, you understand this is a Class five situation,” Lilith pinches the bridge of her nose, her voice soaked with irritation and a dash of a concern, “these children created a potion that bound these two to one another, and there’s no antidote that we know of.”

Eda scoffs, her lip curls upward and that shiny tooth glistens against the light. “What, so just because a bunch of teenagers comes over to my yard to boil a potion, suddenly they’re _my_ responsibility?”

“They are if one of them is yours to care for. It’s basic childcare!”

“Oh, don’t lecture me about that, I’m not a parent and neither are you, but I’ve had more experiences dealing with kids.” Luz had to agree. Eda had quite a solid point there.

Lilith growls before sighing heavily. “How about… we agree to discuss this _later_ –”

“I don’t want to discuss this _at all_ ,” Eda crosses her arms.

“— _and_ ,” Lilith bites her lip in impatience, “figure out how we’re going to fix the bigger situation.”

Eda seems to agree to it because she sighs her frustrations away as she heads towards Luz and Amity. Eda asks. “So, what have you two noticed in the past few days after y’know… testing out the potion?”

Luz looks to Amity, a question of who to talk first. Amity nods in permission, and Luz rolls her shoulder to grant it.

“Well, I started getting cuts on my hands. Small ones, like paper cuts,” Amity taps her finger against the side of the teacup, “then, one day, I just felt something hurt bad and when I went to check, a bruise started forming. Then, I was eating dinner that I suddenly felt my arm burn –"

Luz perks at the last comment. “Burn?”

Amity thins her lips to think of the sensation. “Yeah. It wasn’t like setting your hand on fire, it was almost like touching a cauldron.”

Luz opens her mouth wide before rolling her sleeve to show Amity a tiny scar that she had gotten from the cooking pot. Amity blinks before showing Luz hers, and both look exactly the same.

“Some days,” Luz starts, “I’d feel nauseous. O-or that my parents don’t like me? That they don’t want me,” Amity’s face falls, and Luz raises her hands “It’s weird, I-I don’t know. I know for a fact Mom loves me. My fear of her finding out the truth, I get… but not this.”

She notices Amity thinning her lips, looking up towards Lilith like some sort of silent plea.

Lilith doesn’t say anything. Instead, she crouches down to their level, taking Amity by the hand and drawing a line on her skin with a delicate finger. Amity shivers while Luz does not, but the minute Lilith moves to pinch Amity’s skin, both girls react accordingly.

“The only bond seems to be pain. Physical and mental,” She says more to herself, “This could be an easy fix then. Maybe brewing an unbinding agent would do the trick. It’s only twenty coins.”

“It’s five in the black market,” Eda shrugs, “but this isn’t just a binding potion Lilith, they don’t feel everything. It’s just the painful ones, which by the way –” she shoots Amity a wink, “kudos to you for putting up with Luz’s antics.”

Amity chuckles. Luz could tell a tiny bit of her worries fluttered away.

Lilith, however, looked a little grumpier. “Unless you have a better idea, Eda. I don’t know what else we could do besides take this up to Emperor Belos or work in secret to make an antidote from scratch.”

Emperor Belos.

The Emperor’s coven… That’s the coven Amity wants to be part of. The same coven Luz embarrassed her in front of.

The couch almost slides with how quickly Luz stands up. “We have to try to get an unbinding potion, then. I don’t want Amity to get in another situation with the Emperor just because I did something dumb.”

She feels a slight swell in her chest, and Luz suddenly feels drawn to look at Amity. There’s a small smile on her ivory face.

Eda twists her staff around with one hand and thumping it against the wooden boards of her home. “Alright, it’s settled. We have a temporary truce. Are we going to go my way or yours, dear sister?”

For once, Lilith doesn’t scowl at her words. If anything, Luz notices the way her lips curled ever so carefully. “It’s best to go about it the _legal_ way. We do have children with us after all, and I don’t think it would be good for your business to be spending time with someone in the Emperor’s coven.”

“Alright. King!” Eda bellows and the tiny demon pops out of Luz’s laundry basket full of clothes.

“Ugh, I was having a good dream. Way to ruin the party,” He shuffles over. As he walks, Amity reaches forward to slip off one of Luz’s socks that had been stuck on his horn. “I was this giant triangle dude with one eye and ripped humans apart with my own hands. I even rearranged a guy’s face with a snap of my fingers! It was incredible!”

Luz thins her lips. Funnily enough, she remembers reading the same legend back in a small town called Gravity Falls. Weird, maybe King had been there before.

The market’s pretty rambunctious today.

Eda and Lilith lined up the only available potions stall. According to Amity, the family who had a monopoly over the potion market fell into a scandal just the other day, so all of their potions were turned over to the Emperor for screening. Lilith was aware of the situation; but due to the sudden shortage of potions, the prices have also gone up and the number of customers was nowhere close to going down.

After a few minutes of waiting, Luz’s boredom heightens.

She takes King and Amity to explore a couple of stalls.

King paced around, finding the most ridiculous things. When they get to a stall that sold bright jewels and golden crowns, King attached to it immediately. He picked up one jewel after another and wore one crown after another before he settled his interest on a pointy crown with a ruby in front of it.

But the price is above their pay grade. Forty coins.

“You mean to tell me you didn’t have enough to pay for this, and you flaunted around my shop willy-nilly? _Wasting_ my time?” The shopkeeper started raising his voice. Fear flooded her mind immediately, especially when the keeper had his hands pressed flat against the surface of the only thing separating them.

“Luz, abort the mission. Abort!” King whispers into her ear as he clings onto her shoulder.

“I-I’m sorry. See, we were just curious –”

“No,” he hissed, “you do not just walk into my stall, disorganize my merchandise, and –”

“Is something going on, Orion?”

Luz hears Amity come in from behind them.

Amity wore two different faces for two different situations.

One was her sweet and caring face. The one she would wear whenever she was around Gus, Willow, and (especially) Luz. She retains her usual spitfire, but she’s harmless. This version of Amity is like drinking water. But spicy water. Fizzy water.

The second version of Amity is the _Blight_. Head held up high, tone a little harsher than usual. Her words are clipped and regal. Strong. Incredibly confident. Luz didn’t like _Blight_ much. Only when the reason she’s being a _Blight_ is because of Luz.

The girl in front of her is _Blight_.

“L-Lady Amity!” _Lady Amity_? Luz snorts. “How may I be of service?”

Amity quirked her brow. “I didn’t know you treated your customers with such impertinence. You know how my father feels about such a way of business.”

“I-I-I-I didn’t know they were your friends,” Orion smiles awkwardly.

“So, they have to be friends with a Blight for you to treat them with decency?” Amity shakes her head. “That’s bad business. Think about what my father would say about this.”

She… can’t lie? Seeing Amity pull such a strong front like this always made Luz feel a lot smaller than her. Amity was already an inch or two taller than Luz, but there’s a clear difference in their level of power. Even before they were friends.

Luz would try to find a diplomatic way out of a situation, and Amity will take matters into her own hands.

“I- uhh…”

“Tell you what,” Amity approaches the stand. She reaches into her pocket, pulling out five golden chips. “I’ll buy the crown for five coins, non-negotiable. If you agree, I won’t let my father know about your mistreatment. If you don’t then –”

“I-I’ll take it.” He gathers the coin, nearly dropping one because of his shaky fingers. One of his hands reached over to hand King the crown. King snatches it faster than the blink of an eye.

They turn to leave the stall. Soon as they are out of sight, Luz sighs. “Thanks for the resc—”

Amity yanks and twists Luz’s ear.

“Ow, _ow, ow,”_ Luz yelps.

Amity immediately releases her and hisses to herself, cradling her own ear that ached just as badly as Luz’s.

“We’re connected, remember?! Why’d you do that for?” Luz winces.

“ _Ugh,_ whatever, it’s the implication of the action that counts. What did you think you were doing?” Amity scolds her. “Jewelry stalls have one rule: you touch it, you buy it.”

“I-I didn’t know!”

“Well,” Amity points her thumb over to Luz’s backpack, “King should have known!”

King pops his head out of the bag. “Hey, don’t drag me into your couple’s fight!”

Amity turns _red_. It stings a little to see her react like that. Did the idea of dating Luz make Amity _that_ angry? “We are not – I am… No, you know what?” Amity circles her finger, causing the backpack to zip shut with King inside it.

Luz staggers in her walk when she feels King struggle in the bag.

“That demon is nothing but trouble,” Amity growls.

“Aww, you like him.”

Amity sends a glare down her way. “I do not.”

“I know you’re secretly nice,” Amity reacts to that with an eye roll. “I mean, when Boscha was picking on Willow the other day, you put her right in her place. And literally just now. You _could_ have just scared good ol’ Mr. Orion, but ya’ didn’t… instead, you bought King a crown.”

Her glare intensifies, and Luz knocks their shoulders together. Amity turns red. “I-I got it for him to pacify him. That pet of yours gets annoying when no one pays attention to him.”

“So,” Luz sings, “you secretly cared enough about him that you knew he liked attention, and you got him his crown to show him that you _do_ pay attention. Talk about speaking in someone’s love language.”

Amity shoves her playfully, giggling as she did so. The sight of her makes Luz grin from ear to ear. “Are you bullying me?”

“You bullied me before we were friends, _mittens_.”

“I…” She didn’t think Amity’s face could get any redder, but when it did, Luz made a mental note: tease Amity more. “I thought you just wanted to bring me down like everybody else, to be honest. But… here you are. I’m bonded to the most reckless student on Hexside which is just my luck.”

Luz opens her mouth to say something, but Amity babbles on.

“And it isn’t bad or anything! You just have really bad timing sometimes,” Amity crosses her arms. “Getting hurt while I’m carrying _very_ fragile things, for example.”

Luz gasps, “I have the most _perfect_ of timing.”

“In a sarcastic sense? You _definitely_ do.”

Luz laughs. “Well, think of it this way, at least we feel a little less lonely. I mean, maybe _just_ me. You’re popular at school, but I’m not,” she shrugs, “not for the same reason, at least.”

Amity seems to think about what Luz just said. She bites her cheek before speaking in a low tone. “Being well-known has its price too. Nothing about your life is private. Everyone acts like you’re better than them, and friends only ever care about your status.”

“But… you’re surrounded by people,” She shrugs, “what’s so lonely about that?”

“Everything.”

That one word sounded louder than the clamor of the market. There’s a sinking feeling in Luz’s chest all of the sudden. It’s like she’s suddenly aware that there are many – _so_ many – people around them, and she’s aware of a group whispering amongst themselves, glancing over to Amity’s direction ever so often.

Being surrounded by people but never being _with_ people.

This is Amity’s world. This is how Amity feels. It feels like the world had their eyes on her, and there’s no one else on the stage _beside_ her.

 _Think of it like… being slowly crushed by rocks versus being stabbed_ , she remembers Gus’s words, _it’s a different kind of pain._

This is her pain.

“I think I get it,” Luz nods.

Amity sighs. “And what about you? You have a mom who loves you, and a small group of friends who really, really care about you. That’s not so lonely, isn’t it?”

“It isn’t, but…”

It’s a dusty box at the back of her mind.

Memories that Luz desperately buries time and time again. She’s not the type to dwell on the past, but for this…

Luz stares at the ground and thinks about her moments on Earth. The days where she would come to school, say hello to people in her class only to be ignored and brushed aside. The whispers in the halls about being the ‘weird kid’. The times she’s been shoved around and pushed aside.

Feeling like she’s too different,

Things that could help Amity understand.

And understand she did.

When Luz looks up to Amity, the green-haired girl looked a little shaken up. Amity lowers her gaze to meet Luz’s eyes, those golden eyes holding something significant.

“I think,” Amity’s smile is gentle, and Luz feels her stomach flip. “I think I get it too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next 2-3 chapters will be far lighter. Cute and sweet, even. ;))) After that tho, we’re gonna amp up the angst because happiness is temporary and this fandom and ship needs angst and drama.


	4. Day 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright one more fluff chapter after this and we're about to go on a steam roll of angst ;)))
> 
> Next chapter drops next weekend (sunday), but this might change so check in on this author not for updates on a new drop date or whateveerrr
> 
> EDITT::::::: changed to this wednesday
> 
> Typos!!! i dont beta read for i am a very busy. point em out to me if it rlly bothers u ;)

It didn’t work.

The Unbinding potion didn’t work.

Not only did the wretched thing hurt her throat, undoubtedly, hurting Luz’s in the process, it also tasted like rocks if rocks were edible. They gave it two days to work, and when it didn’t, Luz and Amity agreed on forming some sort of regiment to help both of them survive each other. It required Luz and Amity to share their scroll numbers with each other.

Amity’s also added into their friend scroll chat with Gus and Willow.

Their first agreement started just a couple of minutes before they exchanged phone numbers. Amity agreed to play a little bit of grudgby with Boscha and Skara to practice their winning move for the season. Boscha went a little too rough, and Amity winds up with a scrape on her shoulder.

She didn’t think about it and kept playing. One scrape turned into two, and one bruise turns into a couple.

When she got back to their lockers, Amity’s shocked to see six messages from Luz and a few miscalls.

She apologized over their scrolls, Luz laughing it off and telling her that she was more concerned over the idea that Amity might’ve been in trouble. So, they agreed to text each other if a planned, extraneous, extracurricular activity was ever on schedule.

Their second agreement had been Amity’s rather irregular moods. Luz never asked about it, but she did (hesitantly) bring up how distracting it can get, especially when it was eleven at night and she was trying to get some sleep. Amity also brought up the fact that Luz would sometimes get in over her head about lying to her mother.

Amity recommends lavender supplements, and Luz is quick to take up that offer.

(Of course, Amity needed to tell Eda _not_ to get it from the Night market, because of course, she would.)

They both agreed that when it comes to the pain in their heads, it would be a lot easier if they distracted themselves by texting each other at night.

It hasn’t come to that yet.

But having Luz’s number gave Amity more reason to absolutely adore the girl.

**Luz** _(4:30pm):_ amity :(

 **Amity** _(4:33pm):_ Yes?

 **Luz** _(4:33pm)_ : willow is making fun of me :(

 **Amity** _(4:34pm)_ : Oh? What about?

 **Luz** _(4:36pm)_ : how i eat my fries :((( we’re by Pain Pond Park and she’s bullying me :(((

 **Luz** _(4:36pm)_ : [Luz Noceda sent a photo]

 **Amity** _(4:37pm_ ): I’ll have word with Willow. I’ll be there in five.

 **Luz** _(4:38pm)_ : aww! my knight in shining armor <333

 **Amity** _(4:38pm)_ : What? No, I’m having a word with Willow because she picked on you without inviting me. I can’t believe you drizzle your ketchup on your potato sticks.

 **Luz** _(4:39pm)_ : A M I T Y . :(((((((((((

And just yesterday, out of nowhere, for no reason whatsoever, this girl – the girl that Amity has had a crush on for nearly a _month_ now – messages her in the middle of a bath.

**Luz** _(8:20pm):_ hey amity, willow showed me this kids show called woody woodpecker. we had him on earth too! I always wondered just what kind of bird he is.

 **Amity** _(8:46pm)_ : ………………….. Luz.

 **Luz** _(8:47pm)_ : I KNOW OKAY I REALIZED THE SECOND I SENT IT

 **Amity** _(8:47pm)_ : Wow, you are such an idiot.

It always brings a smile to Amity’s face.

Today though, Amity wakes up to a text that made her heart skip a beat or two.

**Luz** _(10:38am):_ do ya wanna come make food w me? eda finally found me ingredients. willow and gus are coming too owo

Saturdays are usually the days she’d spend with parents, lending a hand to whatever business they conduct. Amity walks around with a paper on a clipboard. She’s the one who counts the Saturday inventory, making sure every piece of jewelry is accounted for and on file. Anything unaccounted for is reported immediately. Any imperfections are melted down and remade.

Her parents, however, have given her the day to recuperate as recommended by Lilith herself.

(Lilith – and Eda – have proven themselves vital to Luz and Amity trying to make this situation work for them. They’re also the ones who persuaded Luz to be more mindful and safer because her actions _literally_ affect someone else’s well-being now.

Luz agrees, and Amity has seen some improvements with it.)

She fires Luz a text, letting her know that she’ll get there in an hour.

Amity slips on something comfortable to wear – a black-and-grey dress skirt, black tights, and black boots. She fixes her hair up into her usual half up and half down. Once the look suffices her, she grabs her shoulder bag and heads right out of her room.

Blight mansion is a rather obnoxiously large compound.

It houses their personal butler, their chefs, their maids, personal guards, and of course, the Blight family themselves. The mansion itself is 1.5 acres of marble and white bricks. Walking from one end of the house to the other end takes her about seven minutes. Their land totals up to five acres, and nearly half that space is taken up by her mother’s moon garden.

Despite how massive the land is, however, Emira and Edric find her rather quickly.

“Hey, mittens,” Edric greets her as she reaches the base of their spiral staircase, “wow, you look dressed. Aren’t you supposed to be taking it easy?”

“Are you meeting someone special?” Emira waggles her eyebrows.

“It’s nothing!” Her tinting cheeks betray her, but hopefully, they’ll brush it off as one of her temper flares. “I’m just heading over to the Owl House. Luz invited me to –”

Ed throws his weight on Amity. “You’re hanging out with the human, and you didn’t invite us? That’s cold.”

The palm of Amity’s hand connects with his face. She pushes him back. “You’ll just annoy me. Find your own friends, will you?”

Emira shrugs. “Why find our own friends when we can borrow yours?”

“ _Ugh_ ,” Amity growls, she walks over to one of the mansion’s kitchens.

She bee lines right to their walk-in fridge with her older siblings tailing along right behind her, saying things that Amtiy did her best to ignore. The chill of the fridge brushes against her skin and freezes the tips of her ears. Amtiy shudders. She takes her usual drink, stopping only after feeling her scroll buzz in her bag.

She takes out her scroll and reads the message –

 **Luz** _(11:11am)_ : hurrryyy, i wanna see you c:

Amity blushes.

“Mittens,” _Oh, for the love of,_ she jumps when she turns her head and Edric’s face is hovering over her shoulder, “Mittens, are you –”

“Please, shut _up_ , Edric.” Amity storms out of the fridge, the red on her face persisting. She grabs her shoes and makes an effort to slip them on as quickly as she could.

Edric stops to lean against a door frame. “Oh, this isn’t just a _hangout_. Em, I think our little sister is finally going on a date. And with a human! Ha! Wow, Mother and Father are going to have a field day with this.”

“It is _not_ a date!” Amity argues.

“Oh, but you _wish_ it was,” Emira quips.

“Ha, guess you were right, Em,” Ed laughs, “there _was_ something weird about Amity at Grom night.”

Amity’s jaw flies open, but the words refuse to come out. She closes it, tries again, but her brain still fails her. Her jaws clench when they laugh and the blush on her cheeks doesn’t subside. Just like that, her siblings won.

She finishes up with her shoes without saying another word.

Just grit her teeth and walk out. There doesn’t have to be anything else said about this discussion.

In her heart, though, she feels a little queasy. Nauseous, even. While she does, deeply believe that Edric and Emira won’t say a word to their parents, there’s still that fearful part of her that they will always think that she’ll somehow cross the twins. Cross them enough that they’ll spill. When that day comes, whatever her parents choose to do next… Amity can’t let that happen.

Her older siblings are uncharacteristically quiet, but she doesn’t think much of it. Instead, she stands back up and looks at both of them back and forth. “I’ll be back in time for dinner. Tell mother and father I’m headed to Skara’s, _please_.” Her voice is a little terse, but also a little pleading.

Emira and Edric look at each other.

Edric thins his lips and grumbles. “Hey, you uh… okay? If it’s something we shouldn’t joke about, we’re sorry.”

“Are you still not sleeping right?” Amity hears worry in Emira’s tone.

Amity bites her lips and lies. “I’m fine.”

Emira and Edric look at each other again.

Edric approaches Amity, wringing his arm around Amity’s neck. “Okay, okay, okay, but you _have_ to promise me that if Luz hurts you –” Amity _almost_ laughs at that considering her current situation with Luz, “— you tell your older brother and older sister, mmkay? What’s a little human going to do against two of the brightest witches in Hexside?”

Amity snorts before punching Edric’s side. Edric clutches the area in mock pain. “I can handle myself but thank you.”

“Now, enjoy your time! We totally _won’t_ go through your stuff while you’re gone.”

Amity rolls her eyes.

As she exits out of their mansion home, her scroll buzzes again.

**Luz** _(11:17pm)_ : AMITY?? WHO IS TRYING TO STRANGLE YOU AND WHO DID YOU PUNCH???

Amity giggles.

She heads off to the Owl House, it’s a little far – around a mile or two through the markets of the Boiling Isles – but Amity shortens that by whirling magic around her scroll. Music starts softly whispering into her ear, and she hums with it the whole way to the Owl house.

She eventually gets there snaps her fingers to stop the music.

When Amity gets to the door, Hooty greets her.

“Hoo goes there?!” Hooty squawks, “Ah! Amity,” he stretches himself until he is only several inches from Amity’s face, “my best friend!”

“ _Bestfriend_?”

“Yes, my favorite person! Despite punching my face and biting my body, I choose to forgive you!” Hooty says, twisting his body into a loop.

Amity’s face twists. “Why would you willingly choose to do that…?”

“Because you are my _best friend_ now, hoot!”

Amity raises a brow. “Right… anyway, I have to go see Luz. Can I come in?”

“I don’t know, _can_ you?”

Amity’s lip twitches impatiently. She rolls her sleeves half up, “Alright, open up.”

Hooty resisted a little, but Amity manages to pry her way inside.

She gracefully falls in with a grunt. The warmth of the Owl House surrounds her. Despite the cramped space and a hazardous amount of clutter, this place feels more like home than any other place she has been in – the library being a close second.

She dusts herself off, looking around every single artifact she could find. That’s when she spots a curled up little think on the foot of the couch. It’s King.

Amity smiles ever so slightly.

She takes a blanket from the ground and lays it over King’s figure.

“ _Amity!”_ Amity jumps.

Luz runs over and nearly crashes into Amity, lifting her off the ground for a massive hug.

She doesn’t hug back, but she does laugh. Awkwardly.

Amity blushes, burying her head at the crook of Luz’s neck. Luz is _so_ warm. Her aura washes over her like the sun on her skin. Amity melts right into it, but she also feels her nerves tingle; her flight senses telling her to bolt out of that door before she’d say something stupid or do something dumb.

“Hey, you,” Amity says as Luz pulls back. When she does, Amity smells a waft of something peculiar on Luz’s shirt, so Amity drags her back in. She tries to ignore the way Luz’s hands fall to Amity’s elbow at her sudden action or the shocked gasp. “What… what is that smell?”

Luz doesn’t respond for a second, but she eventually clears her throat and tries. “O-oh, that? It’s what I’m cooking. Erh, well, baking, rather.”

Amity looks up to meet her eyes, and her cheeks burn. Luz was… a few inches away from her face. Amity could see the slightest flutter in her eyes. The slightest twitch of her nose. The slight twitch of her lips. Amity could see it all.

Even the hint of red on her cheeks.

She suddenly shoves Luz back, reestablishing the space between them.

“S-sorry,” Amity laughs awkwardly. “Wh-wh-wha- uh…. What do you uh, call them?”

Luz blinks. “Them?”

“Th-that,” Amity inhales, trying to calm herself down. “that… thing you’re making.”

“Oh. _Oh!_ On Earth, we call it empanadas,” Luz grabs Amity’s hand and yanks her away further into the Owl house. The smell starts becoming stronger and stronger, and Amity finally reaches the room where Luz’s making whatever it is she’s making.

There are a few square-shaped doughs, all of them raw and packed with some sort of filling; whatever it is smells exactly like Luz’s shirt. The edges of the squares are patterned with short parallel lines. Amity gently leans over and prods at one of them, flinching at the unusual texture.

“What does it taste like?” Amity asks.

Luz rushes over to the table and snatching a plate off of it. Luz returns with a proud grin on her face, and in her hands was a blue plate with a golden-brown square.

Amity looks at it, delicately picking it up with the tips of her fingers. It’s still warm, and it’s a little hefty. She glances up to look at Luz. “What’s in it?”

“Well, you guys don’t really have certain human ingredients, so I had to improvise, but to answer your questions,” Luz rubs her finger under her button nose, “onions, butter, garlic, rix powder, red pepper powder, salt, pepper, and… some sort of meat you guys call spiffer. I used to make these back on Earth with my Mom”

“Spiffers are a little bit on the sweeter end,” Amity nods, “have you ever worked with it? They can get a little tricky sometimes.”

“It’s… my first time.”

“Did it break into string-like meat when you cooked it? Must’ve been hard trying to stuff them into these.”

“Amity Blight,” Luz sings and she crosses her arms, leaning against the island. A mischievous smirk plays on Luz’s lips. “do you cook?”

Amity flusters. “I-I like to help our cooks out every now and then.” She raises the empanada up to her lips and takes a gentle bite. The middle is soft, but the crisp edges deliver a delicious crunch.

She hums as the taste rolls against her tongue. It’s definitely a little _too_ sweet – the spiffer’s meat is also soft, and its texture throws everything off a little too much. Still, despite the overwhelming sweetness dancing around in her mouth, Amity can figure out what Luz is going for.

Amity places the empanada back onto the plate. She licks her lips and her teeth before finally speaking. “Spiffer was a decent pick. Honestly, I would have picked blavve meat, since it holds together when you cook it and the taste is far more savory. But if you add a little more rix powder and a spice called forge mushrooms? It should give you that balance you’re looking for.”

Luz stares at her before speaking softly. “Didn’t know you were a foodie.”

“F-foodie…?” Amity’s cheeks flush again.

“Foodie. Someone who likes food enough to know what you’ll need to perfect it.”

“I-I just… like…” Amity’s voice fails her, eliciting a growl and another flush of embarrassment.

Luz laughs before closing their distance once again to hug her. “Aw, you’re cute when you get shy.”

“N-NO, I am _not_ ,” Amity tries to shove her back, but no dice. When in the Boiling Isles did Luz get so strong? _What has Eda been feeding her?_ “Luz..!” she squeaks, “knock it off!”

“Okay, okay!” Luz releases her hold, but her hands lace together with Amity’s. They stare at each other for a bit. Amity manages to hold it down for a few seconds before needing to look at something else besides Luz’s dark brown eyes.

She can’t help the way her heart is beating against her chest.

Or the way her blood rushes in her veins.

She’s glad Luz can only feel her pain, but even with that, it doesn’t relieve Amity of her anxiety. It’s scary to think that Luz could destroy her with a simple rejection. And, it’s just as terrifying if they do return each other’s feelings. Because what if Amity screws up?

There had been plenty – _countless_ , really – of Hexside students choosing to date their friend only to ruin that friendship because the relationship didn’t work out. She knows a student who once told her crush she liked her, and that ruined a friendship that started six years ago.

She doesn’t want to do _that_.

It’s rare for Amity to get hurt, but Amity’s always ends up hurting the people who get too close to her heart. Willow is the first, but she certainly won’t be the last.

And that’s what scares Amity.

She can’t be the cause of Luz’s pain.

Even thinking about it hurts her.

 _That’s_ when Luz’s laugh forces her to look up from her feet. “What are you thinking about?” Luz says in such a quiet voice. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I can feel it hurting you.”

Before Amity could say something about it, she hears the wood creak. It causes her to yank her hand away from Luz’s.

“Hey, kid,” She heard Eda yell before the old woman enters the kitchen “your two dumb friends are here. Please take them off of Hooty’s beak before they lose any more of their braincells.”

Luz perks at that, the smile on her face is wide. “Oh, okay! Amity, stay here, I’ll bring Gus and Willow over.”

“O-Okay,” Amity nods. Her hand lifts up to self soothe.

Luz rushes off, feet hitting hard against the wood boards. When she’s out of sight, Amity places her hands flat against the wooden island of the kitchen, head hung on her shoulders.

“Word of advice,” Amity flinches. Eda’s next to her all of the sudden, tearing a piece of the cooked empanada and throwing it into her mouth. From this angle, she could see a little bit more of Lilith in her. “Luz is denser than a witch’s cauldron. If you ever want to tell her how you feel, you’d have to _really_ tell her instead of dancing around the topic. Got it?”

Amity sighs heavily. “Yes ma’am.”

Eda chuckles. She squeezes Amity’s shoulder, and the action relieves some of her stress. “Good luck, kid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eda: i diagnose u w gay  
> Amity: f u c k


	5. Day 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi yeah translations will be at the bottom on this chapter because spoilers LMAOO…  
> Alright, so, it’s time to get sad after this. Who’s ready? No one? Too bad. Angst is the one thing I’m good at
> 
> ~~ Next chapter is on Sunday OR Tuesday next week~~~
> 
> Lmk if there r typos or grammatical mistakes bcus im a busy woman. aint got time for that

**Amity** (11:32pm): You okay?

 **Luz** (11:33pm): yeah just overthinking like usual.

 **Amity** (11:33pm): Do you need me to call you?

 **Luz** (11:34pm): yes pls

**Luz** (8:58pm): hey

 **Luz** (8:58pm): where are you?

 **Amity** (9:00pm): At home, why?

 **Luz** (9:01pm): just that i suddenly got scared of Eda abt an hour ago during dinner. are you okay?

 **Amity** (9:04pm): I’m fine, but can we call tonight?

 **Luz** (9:04pm): ofc!

It’s their new thing.

Amity doesn’t talk much about her situation. She’s always been a private person, even prior to the potion incident. Willow tells her that in their years of being good friends, she had never put together that Amity’s parents would have forced her to stop their friendship. Willow advises Luz to be a little more observant, and well… it really isn’t one of Luz’s strengths.

She learns, however, that the problem is based on whatever Amity is vague about at the moment. 

Amity would ask Luz about her mom, and Luz would go on and on about it. Amity always listened. Just when Luz thought she wouldn’t be listening, Amity asks her questions related to the topic – what food did she like to eat on Earth, what kind of neighborhood she grew up in, what they taught her in school…

Curiosity is an active part of Amity’s mind and so is storytelling.

She could go on for hours about her adventures with Willow. Amity even talked about Boscha and the better times they spent together. Amity talked about Edric and Emira – sometimes, when she’s feeling charitable, she’d let the twins say ‘hello’ to Luz.

Thing is, there are some days Amity isn’t responsive to Luz’s life on Earth. Some days where Amity isn’t responsive about Luz’s mother. Other days where Amity didn’t talk about Boscha.

One thing Amity steered _completely_ away from is dating.

For some reason, that’s a line that Luz just can’t cross.

And it’s not like Amity doesn’t listen when she doesn’t ask questions. She just doesn’t put in the same energy. Amity does not do this out of selfishness; it’s more out of self-preservation.

Sometimes, Amity would give Luz a glimpse into her mind. It could last a second, maybe three, maybe ten, but it’s not something Amity dwells on.

Amity figures out a way to change the topic as soon as it’s on the table.

Luz finds out that Amity took the abomination track to make her own little friend. One that her parents won’t be able to control or destroy. Just before Luz could ask more about it, Amity changes the topic to thinking she might ask Principal Bump to add her into the potions track since she’s pretty good at mixing things together.

It’s little things that Luz hears, but it’s a piece to a puzzle she’s slowly trying to figure out.

The problem isn’t just Amity’s walls. It’s also the fact that Amity’s schedule is drastically opposite form Luz. Whenever Amity’s free, Luz is busy doing chores for the Owl house. Whenever Luz is free, Amity is either busy training with Lilith or helping count her family’s inventory.

Every now and then, though… Their schedule aligns just right.

Today happens to be that fateful day, except Amity isn’t responding to any of her messages from last night, and it’s quite unlike her to sleep past seven in the morning. But see, Luz is smart when she wants to be. Or smart just to get something she wants. And what she wants is to elicit a response out of Amity.

So, Luz bites her own arm enough to sting and mark but not enough to bleed.

And just like that, Amity messages her.

**Amity** (8:22am): Luz???

 **Luz** (8:22am): hola amiga!! :D

 **Amity** (8:22am): … What?

 **Luz** (8:23am): buenos dias como dormiste anoche?

 **Amity** (8:24am): ……..

Luz rolls over in her sheets, laughing softly. Just as she was about to explain, Amity calls her.

Luz immediately picks up.

“Hola,” Luz greets happily, “did you sleep well last night?”

There’s shuffling on Amity’s side of the call. She hears a groan before amity finally responds. “ _Luz_ , what in the emperor’s name was that?”

Oh.

 _Oh._ She feels her face heat up, and her hand flies to put a hand over her scroll as if Amity could somehow see her face from an audio call.

She likes Amity. She’s okay with Blight. There’s a sort of grace and invulnerability that both personalities carry no matter who is in front of Luz. Amity is always the type to speak up with a strong and unwavering voice.

But eight words.

Eight words out of Amity’s mouth and Luz thinks this is her favorite part of Amity. The way her voice is hoarse and grouchy through the phone. It breaks, it cracks, and it’s softer than anything Luz has ever heard from Amity’s lips. It lacks her usual sass and her bite, and it’s full of the gentle soul that Luz knows Amity hides behind her status and name.

Luz might even like Sleepy Amity just a little too much.

“Luz?”

“Yeah!” she yells before clearing her throat. “Sorry, I just… I got –” Luz stumbles, “I got distracted. Sorry.”

Amity hums. Luz hears another shuffle on Amity’s side. “Okay. So long as you’re okay,” she mumbles into the line and Luz’s heartstrings pull at the affection, “what were you saying, by the way? Earlier over text.”

“Oh,” Luz says, laughing nervously. “It’s uhh… Spanish.”

“That umm…” Amity yawns over the phone, “language that you speak, right?”

 _Ba-dump_.

“Yeah, th-the one I use with my mom most of the time when it’s just the two of us,” Luz rolls her shoulder to shrug off the tension as a hand moves to feel her warm face. _Is she sick? Why does she feel so warm all of a sudden?_

There’s a breathy giggly at the other end of the line. “You humans are so complicated,” Amity tells her. “Maybe you should teach me?”

 _Ba-dump_.

“I—Y-yeah, good idea uhh… how about today, then? Since we’re both free anyway?

“S-sure, yeah,” Amity says. “I’ll come to the Owl House. Can you make that crunchy thing from the movie night with Willow and Gus?”

“You mean chips and salsa?”

“Mhhh, yeah. I asked the cooks to make it the other day,” Luz bites her lip as feels her elbows and joints sting. Usually a telltale sign of Amity getting out of bed. Her guess is further proven when there’s a shuffle on Amity’s end of the line. “It didn’t taste as good as yours.”

_Ba-dump._

Luz shakes her head, a smile threatening to split her face. “I’ve been making it my whole life, so I think it’s just a first timer’s mistake.”

She _genuinely_ laughs out loud from that. “Idiot. I’m trying to say I like your cooking.” Luz feels her stomach flip. “Besides, you owe me for waking me up. Who even bit you?”

“Oh, I uh… bit myself to wake you up.”

“…. Seriously?”

“I just wanted to see you, okay?” Luz sputters out before she stops herself. There’s a few seconds of silence that passes both of them, and Luz suddenly feels like she just embarrassed herself in front of Amity. She said something dumb, and now she needs to follow it up with something cute. “I mean, you are my friend after all! Who wouldn’t want to spend time with you!”

Perfect response. Great job, Luz!

Something _off_ rubs against Luz’s head, though. Sadness, maybe? But… it’s gone as soon as it hits her.

“Alright, well,” Amity’s gentle voice is gone, replaced by a steadier and sterner one. “I’ll be there in an hour. And _don’t_ bite your arm this time. I was up all night playing Hexopoly with Edric and Emira. Waking up to something painful on my arm isn’t how I would like to start my morning. I’ll see you later?”

“Yep! Mhm. Later,” Luz says too quickly. She hangs up her phone as soon as she hears Amity say goodbye on the other line.

Then, she buries her head into her pillow.

_What is wrong with her?_

Luz gets dressed and heads down to where Eda and King are. They’re both busy sorting through Eda’s haul of Earth materials from last night. Most are junk, but there’s an espresso machine in there, as well as a pencil sharpener, a trash bag jacket – that Eda immediately slips on and calls a ‘leisure’ coat, and a beer mug – that King claims as his personal ‘King-sized’ cup.

What Luz claims, however, is a book called ‘Pride and Prejudice’.

“What is that?” Eda asks curiously, her cup of coffee in hand as she approaches Luz.

“It’s a really popular book on Earth,” Luz looks over her shoulder to answer. “It’s about two people who get a little too far in each other’s skin, and there’s tension and –”

“Alright, you lost me at ‘lovers’. Those things don’t really sell here in the Boiling Isles, so,” Eda ruffles Luz’s head, “keep it if you want.”

Luz almost thanks her, but her eyes gloss over the book one more time before she looks back up to Eda. “Actually, I was thinking maybe Amity would want it.”

Eda looks at her for a minute before chuckling. “Think so?”

“Yeah! She’s um, coming over for chips and salsa. She wants me to teach her a little Spanish, so I,” Luz shrugs, “figured I would teach her and maybe give the book to her.”

There’s a twinkle in Eda’s eyes, and Luz knows it’s the same look Eda would give right before she scammed someone out of their money. Thing is, Luz has no money. So, what scam is Eda planning to set up on her?

“Right, well, King and I have some business to take care of in the Black Market –”

“We _do_?” King barks in the middle of drinking from his cup.

“Yes, King, we do. _Anyway,_ ” Eda slides her jacket off and tosses it onto the couch, “hold down the fort, Hooty’s not allowed to pester your little play date or else he’s not eating for the next two days, _aaand_ makes sure to clean up your mess and our mess when you’re done?”

“Wha—”

“Alright! Good luck, and goodbye! Tell little Blight she can stay over if she chooses to, so long as her metalhead parents don’t come snooping around.”

“Eda, wait –"

Eda grabs King by the collar as well as Owlbert. They leave out of the door, and just like that, Luz is alone.

She doesn’t think much of it. Eda is too mysterious for Luz to figure out, and there’s no other way for Luz to get a hold of her. Not even with a scroll, since Eda thinks Emperor Belos can track witches down with it. So, instead of worrying, Luz shrugs it off and focuses on what she needs to get done.

Chips and Salsa.

Luz isn’t too clean when she cooks or bakes. Her mother had always picked on her for it, but it’s a habit Luz purposely grew into fruition. Her mother would come over with a _tsk, tsk, tsk,_ and a wet towel to wipe the dust off of Luz’s face. There’s a hug and kiss that would come with it, and Luz always melts at the feeling of it.

She feels a twist in her heart for a moment.

She loves it here in the Boiling Isles, but she misses her mother so much more.

If it were possible, she would love it if her mom came with her. The chances of that happening is quite… slim. No matter how much she loves it here in the Boiling Isles, her love for Earth – or really, her loved ones _in_ Earth – made her want to come back. Her heart tells her to stay here, where she truly belongs, but her mind knows she must come home at some point.

And her time is ticking by.

Faster and _faster_ the more night comes.

Her train of thought shatters when she hears a groan followed by Hooty swinging the front door open.

“Hoot, hoot! We have a guest!”

Amity walks through, sending Hooty a glare as he slams the door back shut.

Amity looks… _normal_. Dressed in a red shirt and black, tight jeans. There’s a belt around her waist, but it looks more like an accessory than something to hold her pants up. Her shoulder bag, of course, is always with her.

“Amity!”

Luz notices the way Amity’s face turns several shades red. “Hey, you. You look like a mess.” Amity sets her bag down on the couch. She looks around, a little bothered by the silence falling over them. “Where’s the Owl lady and her pet?”

Shaking her head, Luz answers. “They went out to do business, but it’s funny because she didn’t really tell me about it until I mentioned you were coming over.

“O-oh,” Amity leans against the flat island, drumming her fingers over its surface, “well, maybe she forgot to tell you?”

“Eh,” Luz shrugs as she flattens the dough with a rolling pin, “Eda usually tells me, but then again she kinda just does her own thing.”

Amity hums.

Luz isn’t bothered by her lack of answer, but it _does_ catch her attention enough to look up from her work. Amity had her eyes right on whatever Luz is doing. She seems to hyper fixate on the task at hand, chewing on her lip every step of the way.

It makes Luz smile.

“Do you want to try?” The question makes Amity jump, shocked for just a moment before she eventually relaxes. “You’ll love it, I promise. It’s just flattening out the dough.”

“I-I can try. I just can’t get dust on my shirt.”

“Oh, here,” Luz slips her hoodie off, tugging on her inside shirt slightly. “Eda doesn’t have any aprons my size, but I don’t really need one.”

Amity looks at the hoodie, smiling awkwardly before taking it out of Luz’s hands. Amity slides it on, and Luz watches her struggle a little before eventually popping her head out of the opening. The hoodie goes over Amity’s eyes, causing the little cat ears to fall right on top of her head. When Amity catches her staring, Luz’s cheeks burn scarlet.

 _Ba-dump_.

Luz is suddenly very aware, for some reason, that Eda and King aren’t home. And that Hooty’s left with specific instructions to leave them alone.

“So, um,” Amity moves the hood off of her head, “what do I do now?”

“O-oh, come this way,” Amity walks over to Luz’s side. It’s getting harder to breathe. _Why_? “Right! So, just grab the rolling pin, and roll it over the dough.”

Amity does as she’s told. Her hand is a little hesitant at first, but with Luz’s guidance, she eventually manages to push down with the right amount of force. On her first flattened dough, Luz praises her. Luz starts cutting the dough into triangular pieces – or at least she tries too.

It’s very distracting to watch Amity smiling in _her_ hoodie while making _her_ family’s favorite dish to snack on.

Weird. Luz feels weird.

Even with her jacket off, for some reason, the room feels a little warmer.

Maybe she’s getting sick? But if she is getting sick, shouldn’t Amity feel the same? Maybe that’s why her cheeks have been turning red without Luz’s usual annoyance. Maybe Amity isn’t angry. Maybe Amity’s getting sick.

She wonders if Amity can feel it too.

There _has_ to be an explanation for this.

When Amity finishes her task, she helps Luz chop up the vegetables they need to make salsa. That’s when Luz hears Amity humming a song that Luz is unfamiliar with.

_“Huh, I guess we never really talked about music, have we?”_

_“Do you want to hear human music?”_

Luz plays every song she knows and loves. Amity hums to the beat on some, but she gains an immediate love for MKTO. It’s not Luz’s usual taste. Romantic pop songs don’t sit quite well with her, and it’s not because of the lyricism; it’s more that it’s just not her palette.

But… Luz is willing to screw up her daily recommended playlist just to see Amity smiling and singing.

Luz ends up _loving_ songs from the Boiling Isles. There’s an eerie and catchy feel to some songs, but the ones she really fell into are the weird, indie ones with a gentle beat to it that Luz thoroughly enjoys. It takes her a minute to realize Amity’s focus has been on her when Luz starts dancing to the beat of the song.

There was a part when Luz suddenly ignores the tortillas frying in the pot and pulls Amity into a dance.

Laughter bounces off the walls of the cramped-up kitchen as they do their best at a dance. It’s a little chaotic at first, quite all over the place, really. Their feet bumping into each other as the music of the room fill their senses.

But there’s order within chaos. Or at least that’s what Eda tells her.

Amity leads in human songs, and Luz leads in witches’ songs.

At some point, it doesn’t even feel like they’re in the kitchen. Like they’re back to their moment, fighting against Grom. The two of them dancing under the moon.

Amity slides her arms around Luz’s neck, craning head back and laughing out loud at their little game as they fall into a rhythm. Her hand falls on Amity’s hips, and the static from the contact reverberates through her body.

Everything feels right. Just in this split moment of time with Amity between the flat of her hands, Luz feels _right_. Reality fades away, leaving just her with Amity. Her worries about her mother, her worries about her future? Gone. _Everything_ is perfect.

They balance each other out.

Taking each other’s pain and loneliness, turning it into something good.

 _Ba-dump_.

It’s easy and peaceful.

Luz raises her hand to touch Amity’s cheek as carefully as she could. Watching, waiting, making sure that Amity doesn’t freak out like she normally does. Amity’s face turns red, but she doesn’t push away. Instead, she stands there, glancing meticulously at Luz’s lips as if she’s waiting for her to do something.

Just something.

Luz knows what this is, and she’s a little terrified to admit it. Like as if admitting it would cause the fragile little spark they have to dim out.

 _Ba-dump_.

Luz wants to tell her.

But… she can’t.

There’s too much in the way. Luz’s time is ticking in the Boiling Isles. Even if Amity does feel the same, what then? Luz’s life is different. Amity’s life is different. Luz can’t ignore her responsibilities as a daughter the same way Amity can’t ignore her responsibilities as a witch.

As a _Blight_.

As Hexside’s top student that’s well on her way to the Emperor’s Coven.

She can’t force Amity to choose. She can’t risk the chance that Amity might not even feel the same, and this is all in Luz’s head. She can’t be selfish, especially when she knows that this is just going to lead to more pain in the end.

 _Kid,_ she remembers Eda’s words, _you gotta be more careful with your decisions now. Anything you do, any choice you make, could directly hurt that green-haired friend of yours._

It’s selfish.

It’s selfish, and Luz can’t be selfish.

But she _wants_ to be.

Her eyes close and she places her forehead gently against Amity’s. Luz sighs.

“W-what are you um,” Amity whispers oh so quietly. Her fingers are tickling the hairs on the back of Luz’s head. “I can feel you worrying, but I don’t know what you’re thinking about.”

Luz chuckles darkly before shaking her head again.

“Me encantas.” Her face heats up when she says it. A heavy exhale tickling Amity’s hair.

She _likes_ Amity.

“Me encantas mucho y no se que hacer.”

Amity doesn’t say anything. Instead, she glances towards Luz’s lips. Luz tips Amity's head up a little with her thumb, and as Luz inches a little closer, Amity follows suit. Just when their lips are about to meet -

Amity’s scroll buzzes.

 _Loudly_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NO ONE gets to get mad at me bcus,,, I DID say this is a medium burn They’re not gonna get together THAT easily… psh :)))))) They need more trauma.
> 
> Also, I did a poll and asked who would kiss who first. Half of yall said Amity, so I said LMAO sike what if it’s both of them?..... Ahahhahahaaa,,, and LMAO what if they get interrupted right before their lips meet? :>
> 
> Me encantas = people say this romantically. It’s a below ‘I love you’ and above ‘I like you’  
> Me encantas mucho y no se que hacer = I love you so much and I don’t know what to do / You enchant me so much and I don’t know what to do
> 
> Can’t tell yall my tumblr, but here’s my twitter @lakwatsalang
> 
> Alright. Enough of good times. Time for bad times. >:)))  
> SEE U NEXT UPDATE


	6. Day 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING FOR THE CHAPTER –  
> \- Little bit of parental control and reaction to said control  
> \- Xenophobia (big warning on this. I’m not kidding.)
> 
> Alright, time to start our slow decent into angst + hurt/comfort. 
> 
> ~:::: Next Chapter drops either Thursday 09/03 OR Sunday 09/06 :::::~

_Bzzt_.

Amity jolts backward, away from Luz’s arms the minute she hears her scroll buzz on the island. Her reaction is enough to force Luz to take a step back. They stare at each other, mouth opening and closing with words failing to come out. Her face is hot red, and she doesn’t need a mirror to know. It just feels like Amity’s sticking her face right in front of a torch, threatening to burn tufts of her hair if she isn’t careful.

Luz is the first to gather herself.

Or, well, tries to.

 _Very_ clumsily. She spins around so fast that her side catches the island _hard_ enough for Amity to grunt in pain the minute she did so. Luz clutches her side, before waving an apology to Amity, to which Amity laughs at her for.

Luz returns to the pot of chips, mumbling words to herself that didn’t sound like anything Amity can understand. She stares at Luz’s back, a smile tugging the side of Amity’s face when Luz picks up a burnt piece of chip form the pot.

The thoughts in her head are a little too tangled up and incomprehensible to process what had happened. All she knows is that they almost kissed. One little nudge on Amity’s back and their lips would have met.

There’s a lightness in her heart; a euphoric feeling setting fire to the blood in her veins.

Her hands fall to clutch the edge of the counter, gathering herself before swirling her finger to pick up the call.

Before she could even say hello, a voice came through.

“ _Amity._ ”

Her blood, once hot, ran cold all throughout her body. She straightens herself out, hands flat to her sides and her face hardened, devoid of any emotions she had a few seconds ago.

Even if this person can’t see her, her correction is automatic.

The voice is dangerous, but it’s not one that presents any kind of immediate danger like the usual beasts and creatures roaming the Boiling Isles. This one is charming, paralyzing, ensnaring, teeth as sharp as needles, and a venomous bite as its main arsenal. The smoothness behind his tone hides nothing but wickedness.

The person behind the other line is her father.

“Father,” Amity says a little too quickly. She glances at her side when she hears Luz swivel on her heel.

“It took you a few seconds late to pick up your scroll. What did I tell you about being diligent about that, hmm?” He sounds rather relaxed. He didn’t bite his consonants. It seems to easily roll out of his tongue which gave Amity a moment of relief. “And what in the Boiling isles are you wearing?”

Amity opens her mouth, a confused little noise coming out before she looked at Luz’s hoodie. An anxious feeling threatened to make her stutter, and it’s then that her senses started to heighten. “J-just a friend’s hoodie. They didn’t have an apron for me, so –”

“A friend?” Her father purrs, “Amity… You know I don’t like it when you lie to me.”

“I’m not lying to you, father. She’s right here!” It’s far too late when she notices just how defensive her voice got.

That’s when she hears him chuckle. Darkly. The ones Amity has gotten herself used to whenever he’s planning some sort of scheme. “A good daughter does not raise her voice. But, since you feel so strongly about it, I’ll choose to believe you. You mentioned an apron, is it right to assume you’re making some sort of meal?”

She looks towards Luz, who shrugs. “Yes, I am.”

Silence falls for a second before her father speaks again. “Good. I’m guessing this is neither Boscha nor Skara you’re talking about since those two aren’t known for their… cuisine. So, whenever you’re done, come along home with your friend and bring some food!” He laughs loudly, “Let’s see if you can finally make the right kind of friends this time.”

“Father, I don’t think that’s –”

“Amity, that was _not_ a request.”

Her nerves spike at that moment. She grits her teeth, willing herself to just finish this conversation and worry about the semantics later. “Yes, father. I understand.”

She feels like he’s calculating her response, but a wash of relief waves over her when her father simply hums before hanging up the call.

It’s only when the scroll shrinks away that Amity shrugs the tension off of her shoulder.

“So,” Luz approaches her with burnt chips, “that was your Dad.”

“That was my father, yes.” Amity nods.

“And he wants to meet me.”

Amity puts her hands together, leaning her elbows against the floury counter. “He does,” she says quietly, “I just don’t know how he’ll feel about you. Actually, I know exactly how he’ll feel about you because you’re Eda’s pet… Mother will probably hate you.”

In every situation with her parents, Amity tries her best to win against it.

Her friendship with Willow had been the only time they wone more than Amity lost. There was nothing more important to Amity than that.

There were times when she and her parents would agree. For example, they agreed that Amtity should aim for the Emperor’s Coven. They also agreed to let her take the abomination if that meant giving Amity a head start against her classmates. Amity likes studying which fits in well with her parents’ expectations from her. Amity likes storytelling, so she agreed to essentially babysit kids…

But as time went by, Amity learned how to swivel around their disagreements.

Her parents disallowed her to read Azura or any romantic novels until Amity strongly told them that she wants to be a great witch like her (which isn’t really false, but she only said so as a means to an end). Amity agreed to help out with the Blight’s business _so long as_ she’s allowed one free day for herself.

When it comes to her parents, she tends to play on the safer side. But she’ll double down if he has to.

Luz is a double down kind of situation, but she really can’t tell if she’ll win with the cards she had in hand.

“You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?” Amity frowns at the way Luz smiles at her.

Luz pushes her finger against the crinkle between her brows. “Worrying.”

Amity slaps her hand away, but she does chuckle. “Shut up. This is a perfectly good reason to worry. If my parents stop me from talking to you like they did with Willow, then –”

“They won’t.”

“But what if they will –”

“Amity,” Luz insists, “what if they won’t?”

Amity falls silent after that.

They finish making the chips. No dancing, no music, no talking. Amity also returns Luz’s hoodie, and her friend takes it back dejectedly. It’s a little too loud in Amity’s head, and she’s sure Luz is drowning in the same ocean of worry that’s plaguing her. She really tries to get a hand on it, but it’s like soap.

The more she tries to hold on to it – the more she tries to control it – the pesky little thing just slips from her grip.

It’s at around two in the afternoon that they start heading off to Blight Manor. Luz writes Eda little note, and she even instructs Hooty to give her the word. Luz starts chatting her ear off about her own anxieties, but the thing is, Luz’s worries are rather… well… questionable.

Really, Luz was more worried about the fact that they’re only bringing chips and a dip. Nothing else but something to snack on. Luz even wanted to run to the market just to buy flowers, and Amity needed to remind her that flowers in the Boiling Isles explicitly mean romance or, depending on the flower’s color, deep hatred.

She doesn’t know human customs, but from how nervous Luz looks and feels, Amity can put two and two together. Maybe making a good impression is important. Or maybe giving gifts to men and women of high power is something of a casual greeting.

There’s a lot she still needs to learn about humans.

The more she knows, the faster she’ll know how to efficiently talk to Luz.

They get to the manor in about half an hour on foot and right when they’re at the gate Luz whistles. Amity glances at her. She looks rather impressed by their home; it’s the usual reaction.

Might just be her, but the four-corners of her massive home feels lonelier than the unkempt corners of the Owl House.

Just when Amity lifts her finger to magically open the door, she stops.

“Everything okay?” Luz wonders, a tint of pink shading her cheeks.

“Yeah, just… I think we need to cover ground rules,” Amity tells her. She reaches for Luz’s shoulders to hold her in place. Just… one more form of physical touch until they can’t. “Whatever you do and whatever they say, try not to argue. _Please_. We can talk about it when it’s just you and I, but not when they’re around.”

“Got it!” Luz sticks her thumbs up.

“One more thing, I know how you eat. You’re messy and wild, and honestly, I don’t think I’ve seen you use utensils before… but table manners, please?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Oh, and make sure to tell them you can perform magic. I don’t want them to think that –”

“ _Amity_ ,” Luz puts a hand over Amity’s, “it’ll be fine! Boscha has said worse things, and I do know how to use a fork… _sometimes_ …. I just don’t like washing them, so I use my hands when I can.”

“But –”

“Just knock on the door!” Luz drawls, trying to purposely sound impatient. “Let’s worry about the rest later, okay? Remember, we can do this together!”

Amity couldn’t help but genuinely laugh at that. Some of her worries roll off her shoulders, just like that. It’s amazing how Luz can just do that. She softens up after that, caressing Luz’s shoulder with her thumb. “We can do this together,” her words reach Luz’s red – were they…red? – ears.

Amity breathes in before slowly breathing out. She swivels her finger and the door opens.

She takes a step in, looking for any sign of a friendly face.

Behind her, Luz gasps. She doesn’t have to check on Luz to guess that the young girl’s already running around touching whatever shiny surface she can put her hands on. Amity slides her shoes off when she finds no one around, and just when she stores them into the shoe closet, there are footsteps on the loft above them.

Amity’s the first to react. Her eyes fall to a woman with dark blue skin, antennas, webbed hands, and four black dots for eyes. She’s dressed in a maroon button-up, a black vest, black pants, and shiny black shoes. It’s the usual butler outfit, and Amity smiles at the welcoming face.

“Ah, little Blight,” the woman greets her as she comes down the steps, “and a friend that’s putting fingerprints all over the statues I just polished.”

With that said, Luz immediately retreats her hand. “I—uh… hello, my name’s Luz. Luz Noceda.”

“Mandi.” She purrs as she dips her head, “Would you like me to take the container from your hands?”

“Oh, um,” Luz turns to Amity. She gives her a nod, and Luz smiles. “Yes, please, here you go.”

Mandi takes the container from Luz’s hands and ducks away into the hallway to their left. Amity leads Luz to the one on their right.

Her heart thuds against her chest as she nears a particular, wood carved doorway. It’s the entrance to her parent’s office. The chances of them being in there is a good eighty percent unless they went out on a quick business run. Her feet shuffle to a halt when she hears whistling from the room. She clenches her jaw tightly.

She really can’t tell if Luz noticed the way she tensed up, or it’s their bond reacting to her discomfort, but Luz brushes her fingers along the shell of Amity’s palm.

Luz doesn’t say anything, but the act is enough for Amity to gather her spirits up. She hooks their pinkies together before finally letting their hold slip.

She walks up to the arched doorway, and right in front of her is her father, his focus deep in a pile of files floating in the air in front of him. Her mother stood next to him, talking about the stocks and business of the Boiling Isles. In an instant, her mother raises a hand, and another sheet of paper flies from the desk behind them.

They kept speaking about their business, unbothered until Amity cleared her throat.

Then, and only then did they turn and face her.

“Ah,” her father snaps her fingers, and all the paper stack neatly onto the corner of their desk, “Amity… and her friend,” his golden eyes drag from Luz and fall towards Amity, “that you _failed_ to mention was Hexside’s _only_ human student _and_ the Owl witch’s witchling…”

Amity freezes up the instant her father smiles. There’s a game of mental chess that her family tends to play, although most of the time it’s a game they’re _forced_ to play. Her gold eyes watch the way her father walks over, hands in his business pockets, and his back is bent over unnaturally. His coffee-brown hair is neatly brushed to the side, but it doesn’t make him look any less intimidating.

Her nerves are bouncing off like crazy.

And there’s no doubt it’s mixing with Luz’s own version of anxiousness.

Amity is frozen, and she knows this is hers because it’s her usual reaction. She doesn’t argue, she doesn’t flee… she stands her ground and clears her head.

But there’s a gnawing feeling in the back of her head to speak up. To say something. Something that could ease this situation and stop her father from putting Luz… _no_ , no, not Luz… It’s a feeling to stop herself from getting in more trouble.

Which is very much unlike her.

She’s not selfish like that. Amity would very much rather villainize herself than protect herself.

But, maybe Luz –

Right before her father even stops walking towards them, Amity watches as Luz thrusts a hand forward. “M-my name is Luz Noceda. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Her father glances at the hand before chuckling. “There is no need for that, human. We know exactly who you are, and you know who we are.”

Amity’s mother doesn’t even bother putting her papers down to greet Luz. She only looks over her shoulder, a couple loose strands of her mother’s green hair slid off her shoulder. “I doubt that, darling. I’m guessing being impulsive is just a human trait. Or maybe Amity lacked the thought to let this human know who she’s talking to.”

“Nope!” Amity feels like kicking the wall from Luz’s impoliteness. But she has to admit, it’s pretty brave of her to do so. “impulsiveness is a Luz trait.”

Her mother and father share a long glance at each other before laughing snootily.

It’s her father who speaks first, raising his hands up, trying to stop himself from talking. “Who knew humans were such jokesters. Tell me,” he places his hands over Luz’s shoulders, and Amity can feel the pressure of his squeeze, “why is my daughter talking to a dirty little thing like _you_?”

Amity’s jaw nearly hangs open at the comment. Luz’s brows knit together for a split second, and the reaction happens so fast that if a witch blinks, they would have missed it; and it looks like her own father misses it.

Luz simply smiles, and there’s patience in it. “Amity mentioned a chance of good business that would benefit both of us,” Luz’s voice is a little shaken but it doesn’t falter, “she told me she would protect me against certain witches at school so long as I tagged along. I mean, imagine…” Luz takes a step back from her Amity’s father, so his hands on her shoulder slide off, “A Blight hanging around with the _only_ human in the Boiling Isles who can perform magic. Imagine the attention your family will get.”

Okay, maybe Luz _is_ a little smart.

She’s definitely decisive and intelligent when she needs to be. Quite the opposite of Amity who is often serious; only a little bit of an idiot every now and then.

Then and only then did her mother stash her papers away. She approaches them, a smile raises her lips. It feels malicious. “Hm,” her mother starts, “seems like you finally understand the nature of our business.”

“I… do,” Amity agrees to finally play along when it seems to ease her parents’ sour attitudes towards Luz.

“It’s about time. Your mother and I were worried you would put your head to little use,” Amity feels a little bit of anger mixing with her pain from her father’s words. “But I doubt you thought ahead. You’re looking at the assets, but you’re failing to notice the liabilities,” her father looks over to her mother. “Are we to forget she’s the Owl Witch’s apprentice?”

“She is –”

“I am, but—”

Amity and Luz look at each other, and Luz nods at her to keep going. Good, because the last thing she needs is to correct Luz for speaking for her right in front of her parents. “We are a powerful family, and _Luz_ is Ed—the _Owl_ _Witch’s_ apprentice, and I thought it would put ourselves in a better position with Emperor Belos since we _are_ influencing a wild witch’s _only_ apprentice. In fact, Luz, here, wants to join a coven.”

Her mother then taps a finger against her cheek. Her eyes are calculating and cold. She’s the only Blight with winter cold eyes, and she believes it’s really for good reason. The way she could just see through every defense and spot your vulnerability… it’s jarring. Luckily, though, her hard look is replaced with a threatening curve of her lips. “Perhaps, you’ve gotten smarter… or you’ve become a better liar. Whichever it is, I don’t care to find out. We are wasting daylight.”

Amity spares a smile, but really, the soft expression was meant for Luz.

So, Amity knocks their feet together as a thank you.

“Well, I commanded our dear chefs to cook for us only moments ago, so I highly doubt they’re done. You two arrived much earlier than we expected,” her father tells them as he walks out of the office.

Amity’s mother is the one who finishes his words, but she gives Luz a hard look with her icy blue eyes as she did so. “Give your _human_ pet something cleaner to wear and tell her to shower before she’s allowed to sit with us in dinner. I don’t want the maids to clean any more than they have to.”

Amity nods curtly. “Yes, mother.”

When her mother leaves the room, Amity’s muscle relaxes.

“That was cruel,” Luz says almost to herself.

When amity turns to her, she notices a very familiar twitch on her left brow. It signifies Luz’s anger and frustration, but there’s also a bit of sadness in there.

Did the human comments get to her? Amity immediately feels a sense of guilt in her heart, and it makes one too many knots in her stomach. It feels like physical pain, almost, and that’s when Luz’s brow raises in confusion. She looks towards Amity, shaking her head.

“Not that, Ames,” she says gently, “I’m… used to the human thing. I used to get it back on Earth too.”

“Oh, well… wait what?” Amity is at a sudden loss for words.

“Yeah, well, humans bully you for different reasons. I’ve heard dirty before, and I’ve even been bullied for ah, worse …” Amity makes a mental note to ask Luz about this. Preferably as soon as possible. “But, no, I’m talking about how they kept talking you down. Like, like, y’know… as if you’re dumb. You’re the top of our class! You’re the smartest witch I know, and definitely one of the most hard-working in all of Hexside.”

Amity smiles, albeit a little sadly. “What you said earlier was very smart. I didn’t think you had a plan before we got here, to be honest.”

“I mean, I didn’t… but,” Luz shrugs, “I tried to think business. Besides, I’m better under pressure. Told you, you could trust me.”

Amity laughs, her cheeks tinting red. “Yes, you did. You really did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These kids gotta figure their lives out before they figure anything else out.
> 
> IMPORTANT – Luz’s experiences are based on my own, and yes I am aware that these words tend to be quite hurtful and harmful. I am not ignoring what was said by Amity’s parents, because we are very much tackling this later since 1) this is a multichapter fic, and 2) I need that conversation in Amity’s point of view. 
> 
> Twitter::: @lakwatsalang


	7. Day 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The beautiful art at the start of this chapter is by @autonomyss on twitter. It's based off of Chapter 5 shenanigans 
> 
> WARNINGS:  
> \- Whatever you call it when a parent is .0005 seconds from disowning their own child  
> \- Talks of emotional control  
> \- Parental control  
> \- Blight Twins (they need a warning bcus theyre degenerates and I love them)  
> \- Xenophobia
> 
> Okay look this is a massive chapter, and I went a bit overboard but here it is. o///o
> 
> ~:::: NEXT UPDATE IS ON THURSDAY OR SUNDAY (this might change based on my work schedule) ::::~~
> 
> EDITTT: wait i just realized it’s saturday, not sunday,,,, 👁👁,,,, whatevs, enjoy the early update

((AMAZING ART BY @autonomyss ON TWITTER! Based on Ch 5))

“You’re _in_ Blight manor?!”

Luz hears Willow practically yell from her scroll. She ruffles her hair with the towel Amity handed her, the heat of the bath is still warm on her skin. She has gotten used to Eda’s warm showers, but there’s a very limited amount of water that Luz can use. No matter how well Luz tries to conserve the water, she always winds up with an ice-cold bath by the end of it.

The manor’s water is _hot_ , and Luz doesn’t have to worry about shutting it off to save water. She could use it as much as she wants to. Soak in it as much as she wants to.

Now she’s dressed in one of Amity’s shirt – white fabric with thick, horizontal, blue stripes – and black, well-fitted pants. Willow’s on the scroll, talking to Luz about their current situation as she and Gus worked with Lilith to research a possible cure.

That’s when Willow noticed Luz is not where she usual is. So, they’re a little sidetracked.

“Yeah, the Blights invited me,” Luz says simply. She gathers her clothes into her arms, the scroll following behind her as she walks out of the bathroom, leading her right into Amity’s room.

Luz looks around, finding no sign of Amity.

“Even though you’re human?” She hears Willow speak through the scroll.

Luz folds her dirty clothes and used towel. She walks around the room, only to stop right in front of Amity’s desk. Luz smiles when she sees multiple sheets of paper with Amity’s pretty, little penmanship scribbled all over it.

They look like school papers, all of them being about the same topic but written in different tones of voice. Luz finds a picture pinned up on Amity’s wall right on top of her desk. “They didn’t know,” Luz takes the pin out of the picture and eyes it closely, “they thought I was just another witch at Hexside.”

“Still, the fact that they’re letting you stay…” There’s a clatter in Willow’s side of the call, and Luz looks to see if she’s okay. “I-I don’t remember much about the Blights, but they scared Amity enough to stop her from being friends with me. So, I’m guessing they could do the same with you if you’re not careful.”

Luz plays with the photo between her pointer and her thumb. It’s of Amity, Edric, and Emira, all of them a little younger, with happy grins on their faces. It is a particularly odd sight, but Luz can feel the genuine happiness coming from the photo.

Luz looks around the whole room, finding two or more pictures of Edric and Emira. There are a few pictures of Boscha, Skara, their usual clique of witch friends, and one of her and Willow. Another one’s on Amity’s desk. She’s a little younger, but she performed a light spell.

On the corners of the picture are her parents, smiling along. Proud at the spell their daughter did herself.

It makes Luz frown.

What changed…?

She pins the photo back to the wall before finally taking her full attention back to Willow. “So, tell me about the antidote.”

Willow sighs, pushing her glasses up the ridge of her nose before starting her explanation. “Gus and I were talking about Blaire Berries, and Lilith made a great point. See, she used to use Blaire berries. Constantly, for studies. She also knew a few students who used it for love potions. So… we realized that there’s no cure.”

Luz squawk’s loud. “Are you telling me we’re stuck like this forever?!”

“No, no! Just that you have to wait it out!” Willow clears up. “Blaire Berry potions of any kind are temporary. The only requirement for love potions to work is continual use; i-it’s not just a one-time thing! There’s upkeep to it!”

She sighs in relief. “So, this should be gone in… in what?”

“By my guess? A month. Gus and I put a little over the required dose.”

“Whew, so before I get back to Earth.”

Luz jolts when she hears noises from outside of Amity’s door. She quickly clicks off her call with Willow. She can hear Edric and Emira laughing, and the familiar roar of Amity’s voice. There are footsteps slamming against the wooden surface of the floor, and just when Luz turns around to acknowledge the sudden interruption, the door flies open.

Edric runs in, laughing. Right after him, Emira follows, shoving Amity back. Before Luz could react, Edric grabs a hold of Luz before reaching to get drag Emira to where he is. Both twins are laughing when they hide behind her.

“ _Wha_ —Hey!” Luz snaps, a little shocked.

That’s when Amity comes barreling into the room, and Luz’s jaw hangs open.

Amity’s face is _red_. Tomato, red. Her brows are knitted together, her nose is flared, her teeth formed a snarl that showcased a very sharp canine tooth. Her hands are clenched in a fist, but really the most important part right now is that Amity’s hair is down.

It’s parted to the side and only slightly disheveled. Luz’s heart slams against her chest right then. It feels as though she is about to literally die at the hands of this beautiful girl.

Luckily, this beautiful girl’s anger isn’t directed at her.

“ _YOU._ ” There’s a growl in her voice, so loud and violent that it reverberated in the room. “give that _back_.”

Luz looks behind her, Edric only sticks his tongue out. “You wouldn’t hurt your precious little human, won’t you, Mittens?”

“It’s just a picture –”

“It’s not _just_ a picture, you heretics. It’s a picture back when I was _two_. _Abomination,_ rise!”

“Uh oh,” She hears Emira behind her.

A massive purple hand shoots out from the ground and grabs the two twins from right behind Luz. The arm doesn’t touch Luz anywhere, but the force of it causes Luz to jump away from them. Edric’s grabbed by the legs, and Emira’s grabbed by her torso.

Amity then growls again.

“Human, help us!” Emira yells for help.

Edric only laughs along, his face turning red from hanging upside down.

Luz can’t help but smile and cross her arms. “You guys really need to stop messing with her.”

“We didn’t! We just told her we were going to show you baby Amity,” Edric explains. “It’s just a picture, Mitts! Isn’t she your _best friend_?”

“Really, Ed?” Emira raises a brow, “I thought Luz was Amity’s cr—”

“ _ZIP it_ ,” Amity growls again, sticking a finger right at her siblings, “if either of you says _one_ more word, I will toss you out through the window.”

“Eh,” Edric shrugs, “how about you let us show this picture to your little human girlfr—I mean…” Edric waggles his eyebrows. Luz tilts her head at the expression, “human _pet_ … and we’ll keep our mouths shut.”

Amity grits her teeth. She’s weighing in her decisions before a ‘tsk’ sound leaves her lips. “…. I hate both of you _so_ much,” she says as she snaps her fingers. On cue, her abomination’s hand releases the twins and disappears back into the ground.

Edric dusts himself off before walking over to Luz. He hands her the photo. “Here you go, little human.”

Before taking the photo, Luz looks over to Amity, who’s whispering nonsensical things with Emira. Luz tries to home in on what they’re talking about, and she even tries to prod around Amity’s current negative emotions. There’s a feeling of slight betrayal that starts to fade the more the two Blights whisper amongst each other.

Emira looks up from Amity’s ear, golden eyes meeting Luz’s brown ones. She waits for a moment before sending a wink down Luz’s direction.

Luz’s cheeks tint red. Gingerly, Luz takes the photo, but she doesn’t quite look at it.

“I’ll uh…” she tucks the photo into the pants’ pocket, “… look at it later, okay?”

Edric purses his lips before shrugging. He approaches Amity, ruffling her hair before dragging Emira out of the room with her. When they leave, Amity sighs, heavily, shutting the door of her room.

Amity looks at her then, all the anger is gone. Only a small smile on her lips and a twinkle in her eyes. “Sorry,” she shakes her head as she says sincerely.

“Does that happen all the time?” Luz smiles as she asks. She notices a few strands of Amity’s usually neat hair sticking up and out of her head.

Amity hums in confirmation. She watches Amity walk towards her desk, sighing again as she looks around for something. Luz figures it out in a few seconds when she spots a circular hoop that fell onto the floor of the room. Luz picks it up instinctively.

She hands it to Amity who takes the loop from Luz’s hand. Amity works through half her hair, tying it into a small tail. “Thank you.” Amity tells her before grinning, “Your hair’s a mess.”

“Oh, I couldn’t find a brush, and I –”

Her lips clamped shut when Amity reaches up, running her hands through Luz’s hair. Combing through every soft strand to fix it properly. Luz hums, eyes glazing over when she feels Amity’s nail scrape against her scalp once or twice.

“I can’t remember,” Luz blinks her trance away when she hears Amity’s voice, “but don’t you have any siblings?”

“No, it’s just me,” her voice almost breaks, “good ol’ Luz Noceda.”

Amity snorts and laughs as Luz says so. “I think one Noceda is enough for your mom. Imagine having two of you.”

“Pft,” Luz takes that chance to break away from the dangerously intimate situation they’ve put themselves in, “what, you wouldn’t want two of me?”

She shakes her head, green hair swiveling left and right. “Absolutely not. You’re insane. I can’t even deal with Edric and Emira, and they’re basically two halves of one whole. What makes you think I can handle two of you?”

Luz scoffs, the smile on her face is bright. “Ready for dinner?”

Luz hates the way Amity’s smile turns into a sudden frown. “I don’t have much of a choice but _be_ ready.”

“We’ll be okay,” Luz shrugs, trying to gauge Amity’s response to that.

Nothing.

So, Luz decides to try something else. “Oh, and Good news! The potion’s going to wear off in about a month. Just in time for me to go back to the human world.”

There’s a reaction.

But it’s _far_ from happiness. There’s a forced smile on Amity’s face, but Luz _definitely_ feels a stabbing, needle-like sensation in her chest. It doesn’t make it harder to breathe or anything like that, but it does feel extremely uncomfortable.

Luz has always been aware of what she’s physically leaving behind. Eda, King, Willow, Gus, Hexside—

Amity.

Little anchors that made Luz want to dig her heels on the ground and stay, but her mother is out there waiting for her. If Luz just disappears from the human world, there’s no guarantee that her mother won’t look for her. She needs to go back.

She needs to go back and at least talk to her mom about it.

Luz sighs. She can’t stay.

No matter what, she can’t stay.

“I-I have to go back, Amity –”

“I know but saying it out loud doesn’t make it hurt any less.” Luz can see Amity’s walls buckling right in front of her. She opens her mouth to say something, but she’s interrupted by Amity suddenly brushing past her. “Come on, wouldn’t want to be late for dinner.”

Luz only offers a half-smile as a response.

Despite the Blight’s off-ness towards Luz, she felt the need to praise just how absolutely stunning their manor is. Tall walls painted mostly in white, corridors that go on for what felt like miles, marble, and wooden arches for doorways… It looked straight out of a fantasy book.

Then again, her whole life currently feels like a fantasy book.

She heads down the spire staircase that literally forms right below her feet as she heads down the steps. She’s following Amity, each of their steps echoing booming from one corner of the wall to another.

The dining room isn’t as big as Luz thought it would be. She honestly expected massive paintings on every wall and a massive chandelier in the middle of the ceiling. Instead, there are arched windows that fill the room with natural light and a long, wooden table.

It is as nerve-wracking as she thought it would be, though.

And it certainly doesn’t help that Mr. and Mrs. Blight had their eyes on her the minute Luz walked in.

Emira and Edric are not their usual selves. The twins sit next to each other, and there are two empty spaces just in front of them: most likely or Luz and Amity.

Amity takes the seat to the left, next to Mr. Blight, and Luz takes the seat on the right, next to… well, no one.

“Mandi,” Mr. Blight purrs to the blue woman standing at guard behind him, “the food, please.”

“Yes, sir.” She forms a circle with her entire hand, wrist-twisting.

Luz gasps when her full platter of food appears from thin air. It’s a tentacle, a mound of what looks to be lentils, stalks of something that _passes_ as asparagus, and a bowl of thick white soup; the smell of the dish numbs some of her anxiety.

Excitedly, Luz claps her hand together and licks her lips.

She then feels a pinch on her arm. Luz nearly yelps when she feels it.

She drags her eyes from her plate, shooting a rather accusatory look right at Amity’s golden eyes. Just as she’s about to bark in protest, it all clicks together.

Amity pinched her. Because of… _table manners._

The last thing to arrive at the table is Luz’s chips and dip that’s divided between the Blights and herself. Compared to the entre in front of her, her creation looks… bland.

She takes a cautious glance towards Mrs. Blight, who wrinkles her nose at the sight of it.

“This is ah… a human delicacy?” Mr. Blight questions as he takes a piece. There’s genuine curiosity there. The same kind that Amity would have towards her human traits.

So, Luz lets herself break into a loose grin. “Yes! It’s more of a snack than anything else, but… It’s something most humans like to eat.”

He takes the piece and dips it into the salsa. The chip crunches under his first bite. Suddenly, there’s a smile on his face. “Interesting flavors. Not a fan of the texture since it’s a rather crumbly thing, but it’s definitely new. Now, everybody enjoy their meals. Praise the Emperor for his greatness, and the titan for their magic.”

Luz follows Amity’s lead to pick up the fork.

For the most part, they didn’t speak at all.

A few questions by Mr. Blight there, and a few snide remarks from Mrs. Blight here. Edric said a joke right towards Amity, and Amity grumbles in response. Emira talks to Luz every now and then, asking about human food.

There came a point, though, when the conversation started feeling… a little anxiety-inducing.

“Amity,” Mrs. Blight starts, taking the napkin from her lap and tapping it against the corner of her lip, “I heard from Boscha’s family that you have not only been talking to this human, but you’ve also been seen around Willow.”

Luz notices Amity’s sudden grip against the tablecloth. Other than that, though, there’s barely anything that would indicate discomfort.

“Yes,” Amity’s reply is short and curt.

“Must we explain it again?” It’s five simple words that – for some odd reason – felt like a sucker punch. Luz nearly drops her fork because of it. Mrs. Blight continues with the same scolding tone. “You are a Blight, and you cannot afford any further distractions. Not when you are this close to becoming one of the greatest witches to walk the Isles.”

Tense.

The air around them is tense, and so is Amity. “But mother, if you could only see how much better Willow has gotten –”

“ _Better_ is not the _best_. Skara is the best at throwing parties; Boscha is the best captain Hexside has ever seen, besting _your_ ratio by fifteen points; Willow’s best isn’t even half of what you are capable of, Amity. Don’t be a fool.”

Just when Luz is about to argue, Edric sighs loudly. “Ugh, at least Mittens’s got friends. Imagine being a Blight and getting ditched during Grom.”

Mr. Blight chuckles. “You come off too strong, Ed. Suave and charm are all a man needs to win the love of a strong individual,” Mr. Blight spares his wife a look that contradicts the sharpness of his face. Mrs. Blight shows a tint of red before returning her focus to her food. “What about you, human? Did you want to ask anyone out to Grom?”

_Amity._

She jumps and knocks her knees against the bottom of the table. Nope. No. She can’t say that. “I-I-uhh… I didn’t know about Grom up until well, two nights prior. So, I couldn’t ask anyone.”

“Hm. Shame. Though,” Mr. Blight takes another bite of the food on his plate, chewing and swallowing before speaking again, “I highly doubt anyone would want to spend their night with you. You are a human after all. Not a lot of witches are a fan of that because unlike Willow, you’re not even a witch.”

Luz wanted to respond with a forced laugh. Their comments stung a little, and it’s pretty easy to admit that to herself. She can only remember the way Amity used to talk to her, refusing to believe that a measly human would be able to perform magic of any kind.

She didn’t get a chance to respond, though.

Because Amity responds for her.

“Despite her disadvantages, Luz paved her own way to become a witch. In fact, she knows three spells at this point.”

Amity’s voice is sharp and concise, but… Luz can feel her emotions. She can feel everything. Every divot of worry and every drop of fear. She’s shaking in her seat as she speaks, and there’s that all too familiar feeling that she’s about to regret the things she just said.

“Three spells are hardly anything,” Mrs. Blight challenges.

“It is if you’re a not even supposed to be able to do magic,” Amity quips.

Mr. Blight raises a cup to his lips, taking a sip out of it as he hears Amity’s response. He lets the cup thud against the table when he sets it down. The sound sends a jolt down Luz’s spine… or Amity’s… she’s not entirely sure who’s reaction is who’s right now. “Now, now, Amity. Let’s not act like a child in front of our guest. Your mother was simply giving you her opinion.”

The way Amity clenches her jaw is obvious, and Luz takes that chance to smile politely and speak. She’s not about to let Amity take the fall for this. “It’s okay, really –”

“No, it’s not.” Amity tightens her grip on the edge of the dining table.

“It’s true mother,” Emira says this time, “Luz and Amity saved Edric and me from a Slitherbeast. If it wasn’t for them –”

“And _who_ woke the Slitherbeast?” Mr. Blight quirked a brow.

Silence loomed over them like a hammer over a nail. Luz looked at Amity, whose eyes are focused right on her plate of food, before looking over to the twins, who shared a glance at each other before biting their lips and falling silent.

That’s when Luz makes the mistake of looking towards Mrs. Blight – cold pale eyes, seconds away from sending a curse down her direction.

Luz gulps.

She doesn’t know _how_ , but every single time, it just feels like Amity’s mother knows the _exact_ truth. The feeling of guilt that’s starting to bubble over Luz’s chest is heavy.

It’s a game of chess, and Luz is playing for the first time. The Older Blights had her King cornered, and there’s no move out of this without sacrificing a piece.

She can’t let anyone else take the fall for this.

But for the second time today, Amity bites the bullet.

“It was my fault.” _She sounds scared._ “I was practicing with Edric and Emira, and I lost control. I sent a hex over the trees. It hit the slitherbeast. Luz and The Owl Lady were there, so they helped me.”

“ _Amity_ –” Luz whispers.

“So, not only did you put your siblings’ life in danger, but you also recruited the human and her pitiful mentor for help?” Mrs. Blight’s words are devoid of any emotion. “Let’s not forget that this human also offered to take your place as Grom Queen which you took. A weak link is unacceptable, Amity. I will not let you drag my family’s name with your carelessness. Your brother and sister learned that years ago. If you make this mistake again, I will have to force my hand.”

Luz feels an overwhelming wash of shame, embarrassment, and realization… followed by obedience.

“Yes, mother.”

Just like that, dinner is over.

Luz is given an offer by Mr. Blight himself. Special permission to sleep over if Luz talks more about human cuisine with him. Turns out, he’s got Amity’s curiosity towards new things. Even though his curiosity is more… uh, how would she word this… capitalistic?

Luz accepts the offer, though.

And, really, Amity’s situation is far more serious than Luz thought.

Amity and her parents want the same thing for her: to become a great witch.

Problem is, while Amity’s dream started because of Azura, her parents might have wanted it for the sake of power, and credibility, and financial gains. With that said, there’s more than just the pressure of being a Blight. There’s also the pressure of staying true to herself, and her parents snuff it out every single time.

_“But… you’re surrounded by people. What’s so lonely about that?”_

Luz opens the door to Amity’s room and finds the green-haired girl perched on her windowsill. The only light in her room came from her desk where her diary sits. Amity’s eyes are looking out into the field and over the fence of Blight manor.

The wood creaks from below Luz’s feet as she approaches her.

_“Everything.”_

She understood her that day, but seeing it happen right in front of her is different. Amity deals with that almost every single day.

“Amity.”

“Hey, you.” Amity croaks, glancing over her shoulder. She shifts closer to the left side of the window. “Come sit with me?”

Luz smiles and sits on the empty space in front of Amity. From this angle, Luz could see her glazed golden eyes reflecting the stars in the sky.

 _Pretty_.

She turns away right then and there.

 _Focus_. Now isn’t the time to think about a stupid crush.

“Mother brought the Blight name into greatness. Top of her class, favored by Emperor Belos, and started the massive business boom in Bonesborough.” Amity starts to say. “She’s not a kind person at _all_ , and she certainly isn’t the best parent in the world. That’s why she’s so keen on keeping Edric, Emira, and I in line.”

It makes sense. The same thing happens in the human world, but it still leaves Luz feeling a bit… down. “That doesn’t mean they get to say mean things to you. They’re still your parents. Caring for their kids should be their priority.”

Amity sarcastically laughs. “They do, though. They care. They love us.”

“I don’t think they do.”

“People love and care differently.”

“Do they really care about you, though?” Luz is on thin ice, and she knows it.

And although the ice cracks under her weight, it doesn’t break.

“Mother prepares my lunch box every day. She’s also the reason Lilith is my mentor. She’s the one who gets my Azura books, my training wand... Father teaches me all about business and food. He’s one of the reasons I wanted to get on the abomination track.” Luz can hear a vulnerable softness to Amity’s voice. “I wanted to be a strong witch, and they are more than happy to give me the resources to become just that.”

“What changed?” Luz asks.

“I grew up. Edric and Emira too. It was fine, at first. But at some point, I realized that their version of love and care isn’t healthy. Sure, they gave me the resources, but they also controlled everything I did and every person I associated with,” Amity’s voice cracks near the end, and it sounds almost like she’s about to cry.

But Amity pinches the bridge of her nose before breathing evenly.

“Edric and Emira were forced to stay together after they started befriending kids in the detention track. Mother and Father thought that was shameful, and they made them do the same thing I had to do with Willow. It’s either follow their orders, or they’ll find a way to make you.”

Luz understands now. Sort of.

Her parents are… well, not the best folks in the Isles. She still doesn’t understand why Amity would even find them the slightest bit tolerable, especially after what they did to her and her siblings. But Luz isn’t in her shoes. She isn’t going to understand it _completely_.

Just because they share their pain doesn’t mean Luz knows the reason for it.

Luz’s own mom sent her to a summer camp to snuff out her weirdness. Despite that, Luz knows she’s only trying to help her fit in. Others, though? They might see it differently.

All Luz can do now is help Amity the only way she knows how to.

“I’ll do it.” Amity looks up at her, head tilting in confusion. Luz reaches over to hold Amity’s hands. “If you can’t get it from your parents, then I can give it to you. Fearless champion, remember?”

Amity’s face flushes into a deep red, but she doesn’t jump away like she normally does. Instead, Amity runs her thumb over Luz’s knuckles and smiles.

“How about you?” Amity asks.

“What about me?”

“Are you okay? I mean, my parents said some pretty bad things back there.”

Luz shrugs. “I’m fine! Seriously, girl, you need to stop worrying about me.”

Amity laughs genuinely this time, letting the back of her head thud against the windowpane. “I’ll always worry about you, dork. You’re always a second away from doing something dumb.”

“I’ll have you know I haven’t gotten hurt in four days. Which is a pretty long streak,” Luz huffs.

“Yes, because I nagged your ear off when I felt something smack against my back _four days ago_. Honestly, what made you think teaching Willow how to… f-five star?” Amity arches a brow, and Luz bites her lip and nods, “ _Five star_ was a good idea?”

Her laugh echoes around the room. “I didn’t know Willow worked out!”

Amity laughs along. “No, okay, okay. Seriously,” Amity puts her free hand on top of Luz’s knee. “Are you okay?”

Luz shakes her head, trying to get all of her laughter out before replying, a small smile rising on the corners of her face. “I’m okay. I promise.”

Amity seems to think about it before nodding. “Okay. Then do you feel like reading a book with me?”

“Oooh, what book?”

“The human book you gave me.”

Amity rings her finger around to pull a book from the shelf. She hovers it over from the air before snatching it with her hand. She shuffles from her seat, looking back and forth between her bed and Luz. Her cheeks tint red yet again. “D-do you want to read it on the bed?”

Y’know… Luz is really starting to think her flushed red cheeks aren’t because she’s angry.

Luz opens up her arms and legs before smiling from ear to ear. “Come here!”

“Uhhh.. uhm,” Amity’s cheeks burn brighter, “I-I-I don’t um… Luz, we can go on the bed –”

“Aaand, scoop!”

Luz pulls Amity into her arms. Amity’s back is up against Luz’s front, and Luz’s arms are wrapped around Amity’s waist. Amity sets the book down for a second to run a hand through her hair. At this point, she looks like a ripe tomato.

“ _Luz_ —”

“Come on! Let’s read,” Luz laughs, hoping that would calm Amity down. “This is one of my favorite human stories. And gosh, the ending is so good. They meet each other in a field and –”

Luz feels a pinch on her arm, and Amity half swivels around to scold Luz and flick her forehead. “Spoilers, dummy.”

They finally settle into a warm and comfortable position. Luz had her head tucked behind Amity’s shoulder, and Amity had her hands focused on holding the book. Every now and then Amity would look over her shoulder and ask if Luz is done reading the page. Luz would hum, and Amity would flip the page.

This went on for hours until Luz starts to drift to sleep.

She doesn’t know if it’s in her dreams, but the tiniest touch of a finger traces the shell of her ear. It’s then followed by a soft whisper and a kiss on her cheek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me @ luz: are ya winning mija?
> 
> EDITT: i have to add, this is no way me trying to defend the Blights’ for their shitty actions. this is a multichapter fic. everything will be tackled one step at a time. this step is more to teach Luz about Amity’s point of view on why she never really speaks out against her parents. Amity will get her senses knocked awake soon. okay? just be patient bebes🧡
> 
> Alright, now that Amity angst is done, let's go to Luz angst
> 
> My twitter: @lakwatsalang


	8. Day 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cracks every single bone in my knuckles*  
> Alright ladies, gents, and pals… here are your WARNINGS:  
> \- Details on bullying  
> \- Really, that’s it. :)))) 
> 
> ~~~ NEXT UPDATE IS ON SATURDAY-MONDAY (yes, this week) ~~~  
> EDITT::: Update changed to TUES-THURS next week. I forgot I had online work to do

_“Tell me a bit more growing up.”_

Luz started getting bolder with her questions.

The question is never asked at school or around their friends. It was always in private, where it’s just the two of them and there’s really no one else besides them. Luz had been a lot more careful with her timing too. Amity noticed how she would always hug her of hold her hand before asking her such incriminating questions. The way Luz would immediately drop the topic the minute she noticed someone near them.

Amity told her as much as she was open to talking about. She told Luz the good, the bad, the moments in between that pivoted her life into the direction it’s going now. Her best birthdays, her worst birthdays, her favorite places to go. Her favorite food, her favorite color.

_“Oh, and I haven’t looked at that picture Edric gave me. Is it okay if I look at it?”_

_“You… you didn’t look?”_

Amity started sharing more and more pictures of herself growing up. Luz asked the big question about her hair about ten pictures into it. Amity admits that she’s forced to dye it since she’s the only one with brown hair, explaining in little detail that it’s just another one of her mother’s smaller attempts at control.

Not a single moment during these discussions did Amity feel like Luz wasn’t paying attention.

Of course, every now and then Luz would ask a question that’s a little too sensitive, and Amity feared Luz’s pushiness. Luz had a natural curiosity for things, and Amity isn’t the kind of person who enjoys that kind of pressure.

Turns out, Luz also learned not to stick her nose where she’s told not to. So, Amity started becoming more comfortable in telling her ‘no’.

Luz also talked to her more about her childhood, and that’s when Amity noticed something a little off about it.

Luz never talks about her human friends. She always talked about her mom. Amity jots it down in her memory to ask her about it one day, but only when the time is right.

“ _Teach me how to speak Spanish_.”

And Luz did. Little by little.

They would spend their free time in the library – Amity’s little hideaway from the Boiling Isles. Luz wrote her a dictionary list of words she knew and the different conjugations for each of them. It was a learning curve for sure, and Amity’s definitely still learning the basics, but Luz jumped ahead and taught her a few phrases in Spanish.

 _Como estas_ which meant ‘how are you?’

 _Bueno_ which meant ‘good’ or ‘okay’.

 _Hablo poco espanol_ which meant ‘I speak little Spanish’.

Amity picked up on a few dictionary words and phrases on her own based off of what Luz had already taught her. So, she made her own short sentences just to surprise Luz.

She also learned that Luz’s name means ‘light’ which is quite adorable considering this is also her first spell.

It took about a day of teaching for Luz to start giving Amity various nicknames, and it took another day for Amity to start calling Luz various nicknames. It’s earned a few uneasy stares from Willow, Gus, Boscha, Skara, and really almost all of Hexside.

Now that her parents allowed her association with Luz, Amity felt free. Free to tag along with her to whatever mess they were about to get themselves caught in. Free to talk to her whenever she wants to. Free to talk to _Willow_ since Luz is friends with Willow, so it’s just an inevitable meeting.

Luz is… welcome in Blight manor.

Edric and Emira grew _intensely_ fond of having someone new around. They’ve invited Luz to play Hexopoly, and honestly, that’s probably the last thing Amity expected Luz to win at but, she demolished the entire Blight household at it.

Amity’s mother and father are starting to warm up in their own weird way, her father more so than her mother. Luz would come over, happily greet them, and they’d scowl at her lack of mannerisms. Amity found it endearing though, especially when her own mother commented about human’s being happy for absolutely no reason.

She’d talk to Mandi too which she found very ‘Luz’ of her.

And perhaps that’s what the Blight manor needed all along. Someone to come in and throw them off in a positive burst of uncontrollable chaos.

So far, everything’s been easy on them.

So far, there hasn’t been much of a problem.

“Are you going to the Bludgeoning Festival tonight?”

She jumps when Skara asks her from across the cafeteria table. Amity blinks her golden eyes away from the human book Luz lent her – which, by the way, is turning out to be one amazing read – to bring her full attention to the girl in front of her.

“Yes. It’s not like I have a choice, anyway.” Amity shrugs as she tells her. “Edric and Emira love that festival, and it’s one of the only events mother and father allow any of us to do whatever we want.”

Boscha groans. “I bet the Grometheous Tunnel of Fear is going to be filled this year again.”

Skara squeals at that, “Ohhh, I cannot wait to get on it with Korks! We’ve been dating for four months, but –”

“But nothing,” Boscha growls in annoyance, her third eyes rolling after she effectively cuts Skara off. “That thing is made to make your relationship or your chance at a relationship fail. It’ll just cause problems between you and your stupid boyfriend. Trust me, don’t get on that ride.”

Unfortunately, Boscha’s right.

The Grometheous Tunnel of Fear is a ride made for couples who want to test the strength of their relationship. Throughout the ride, they’ll face each other’s fears, and it will test just how complimentary one person is from the other – if the person’s fear presents itself, and their partner effectively fends off their fear, then the relationship will last. If the couple fails… well.

Amity thinks the ride isn’t worth much.

There’s more than just understanding each other’s fear and pain that makes a relationship work. There are far more obstacles to get through, and they’re not that easy. Love isn’t enough to make something work, and she’s a firm believer in _that_ as well.

It’ll never be as easy as books make it seem.

Probably why Amity enjoys reading this human book – _Pride and Prejudice_ – where their situation is a lot more than just falling in love.

“Aww, boo,” Skara puffs her cheeks, “you’re just mad everyone’s too scared to ask you out, Boscha.”

“I— _what?!_ ” Skara laughs at Boscha’s angry look, and Amity doesn’t stop herself from smiling at their playful display.

She dissolves her attention back to the book, reading each line with different voices in her head. It’s when the bell screams that Amity shoves her book back into her shoulder bag. She stands up and heads to class.

It’s a normal day, really. Nothing much feels off.

That is until, she feels a familiar bite on her forearm that Amity just smiles to herself, excuses herself out of the class, and heads to the bathroom stalls.

She takes her scroll out of her bag –

 **Luz** (1:10pm): chica!

 **Luz** (1:10pm): whats a bludgeoning festival? owo

 **Luz** (1:34pm): hermosaa responde por favorrrr. willow told me to ask u :((

Amity scoffs, but her heart flutters anyway. Her parents will have to forgive her if her grades fall slightly this quarter because Luz is the kind of distraction that Amity is never going to be able to say no to.

 **Amity** (1:42pm): You need to stop biting your arm to get my attention.

 **Luz** (1:43pm): but it worked didn’t it? :3c…

 **Amity** (1:43pm): Walk me home today and I’ll tell you all about it. :))

 **Luz** (1:44pm): :OOO diD YOU JUST USE AN EMOJI???

 **Amity** (1:44pm): Yes, and don’t make me regret it. Meet me at the front of Hexside when the bell screams. Bring Willow and Gus too, if you want.

Amity shoves her scroll back into her bag before heading off.

It doesn’t take to long for the bell to scream for the last time today. Amity waits just a little while for the crowds of students to exit out of the building. She takes her time, scribbling doodles on her paper for the next twenty minutes before finally shoving her things into her shoulder bag.

By the time she gets to the entrance, Luz, Willow, and Gus are there to greet her, along with Edric and Emira.

Edric’s the first to react to seeing her, and Amity shoves him to the ground when he runs over to hug her. Willow laughs before helping Edric back up with her vines.

“Amity!” Luz greets her, throwing her arms up in the air, “look who we bumped into!”

“Amity, Amity, _Amity!_ ” Gus rushes over to her, bouncing up and down in excitement. This is the first time Gus has ever approached her with this level of excitement, and amity figures it out just as he looks at her with wide eyes. “Your siblings are _so_ cool! I didn’t know we were in the same track and, _oh man_ , they’re _twins_ too!”

Amity spares him a smile for his ignorance. Them being twins is one of the main reasons their parents told them to take the same track. Twins are said to have the same magical wavelength which allows their magic to buff each other out.

In a double witch’s duel, Edric and Emira are the power players. Any other group that fights against them is in for a devastating defeat.

Emira leans against her sister’s shoulder, sending the shorter boy a wink. “Hey, if you want to learn a few handy tips, just ask Edric and me. We’re pros at this point.”

“Yeah,” Edric ruffles Amity’s head, “mittens over here gets to have private lessons.”

“You’re serious?” Gus shrieks. “Who knew the Blights were so cool?”

Willow rolls her eyes, dragging Gus back towards her. “They’re not. Edric and Emira just like to mess with you. At least Amity knows when to draw the line, but these two?”

Emira giggles at that. “That’s because our wittle siwster is a stuck up to rules. Then again, you guys have been pretty bad influences on her. She’s been a little more… lenient.”

That’s when Amity pushes both of them off of her. Her burn to a shade of red. “Don’t you two have other people to annoy? Seriously…”

“Nope, just you.”

“Uh uh, just you.”

They both say at the same time.

It’s sudden when Luz takes Amity’s hand, yanking Amity towards her and away from the twins. Amity feels Luz’s arm suddenly slack themselves across her shoulder. Her heart flutters at it, and she anchors her arms steady on her side. “We were just talking to Edric and Emira about the festival! They said they’re going, and I asked if we could borrow you for tonight.”

Amity blinks, looking at Edric and Emira.

The Bludgeoning Festival is Amity’s day with her siblings. They get on rides that Amity hates, grab food that Amity hates, and take hours and hours walking around the clothing stalls which Amity also hates. Despite this, Amity loves the time she spends with them.

And she would rather be hexed into a bird for the rest of her life than admit that.

“Aww, mittens, don’t look so sad,” Emira taps her nose, and a small smile spreads over her face. “We’re counting on Luz to take care of you.”

“And she did promise not to make you cry, so if she does? Come find us and we’ll make her life miserable,” Edric pauses, then adds, “by asking Boscha to do that herself.”

Amity looks from one twin to the next with eyes narrowed to a slit. “Why…. Do I feel like you’re up to something?”

“We always are, mittens,” Edric grins. “Well, it’s time for Emira and me to take our leave. See ya, freshmeats.”

Just when her older siblings leave, their group made their way out of Hexside’s property.

Explaining the Bludgeoning Festival to Luz went a lot easier than Amity thought. Luz quickly picked up on the history of the Boiling Isles, understanding quickly that the wild witches once roamed the lands until Emperor Belos taught them the right way. Though, Luz was more prone to questioning Emperor Belos’s reign.

And that’s something Amity doesn’t understand. There’s a perfectly good system in place, why question it?

Amity explains the Bludgeoning Festival started when the witches of the past would soak themselves in red paint and dance under the moonlight until the day arrives. Any witch who stops dancing before the rise of dawn is then called a ‘half-witch’. Funnily enough, that’s also where the insult came from.

Nowadays, the tradition is a festival with festival games, food, and festival rides.

Some witches still keep tradition by taking part in the witch’s dance, which happens an hour before the festival comes to a close.

They reach Blight manor after walking Willow and Gus to their homes.

As soon as Amity arrives, she quickly heads up to her room to freshen up and ready herself for the night.

By the time she comes out of her bathroom, fully dressed in a loose, quarter sleeve shirt, black jean shorts, and black heeled boots to wrap it all together. Just before Amity could put her hair up, she hears a tap on her window.

“ _Luz_?” Her jaw opens slightly. She walks over to unlatch her window, and as soon as it opens, Luz glides in with Eda’s staff. “What are you --?”

“Amity! Hey – _ow, ow, ow –_ ”

Amity yanks Luz’s ear, gritting her teeth in pain when she feels the hurt bounce back to her. She pulls though, until Luz slips off of Owlbert, falling right on the wooden floor. Amity then clutches her side when _that_ backfires on her. “Titan’s sake, I cannot _wait_ until this potion’s effects are gone because then, I wouldn’t be holding a single ounce of strength back.”

“What is _with_ you and hurting me?” Luz laughs as she clutches her ear. “If you want me to go, I can go –”

“No!” Amity says too quickly. She runs a hand through her hair and sighs. Luz stares at her with wide eyes and red cheeks. Amity tries not to think much of it, but the way Luz is looking at her feels… intimate. “No, just… I don’t exactly know how mother and father are going to react if they find out I snuck you in.”

Luz smiles from ear to ear, and the worry in Amity’s heart drains in an instant. “Don’t worry. They won’t find us. Besides, I came here to take you to the festival! I-I got Eda to lend me Owlbert for tonight in exchange for… well, more chores.”

Amity shakes her head, chuckling. She moves to pick up her brush on the desk, and just as she turns around, Luz is standing right in front of her. “…What?”

Luz doesn’t say anything for a few seconds. Instead, she reaches towards Amity, brushing little wisps of her green hair to the side.

It’s at that moment that Amity realizes three things.

One, Luz is _dressed_. Not as fancy as she did in Grom, but she’s wearing a light, olive bomber jacket and underneath that is a shirt that is a white shirt. Cuffed jeans and black flat shoes with white laces, and there’s a pentagram inside a circle.

Two, the curve of Luz’s ears are… red. Not only that, but her coffee brown eyes are also shining with what Amity can only explain as hesitation.

Three comes with the realization of two. Luz looks like she wants to ask something. She opens her mouth, closes it, then tries again, but it looks like she just can’t get it put at all.

She’s struggling. Amity can feel it but with their bond aside, she can see the crease of worry on Luz’s eyebrows that goes hand in hand with the sudden thin of her lips. That telltale sign of Luz wanting to do or say something for herself.

It’s definitely out of character for her, but… Anity _does_ know Luz won’t say anything if it has anything to do with her own personal feelings.

So, Amity asks for her.

“Do you want to do my hair?”

Luz stops her hand. “I—”

“Actually,” Amity tilts her head. _Lighten the situation_. “Do you even know how to tie someone’s hair?”

The crease disappears right then, and her doubtful look is replaced by a massive grin followed by a laugh.

 _Good_.

“Is that a challenge, Blight?” Luz crosses her arms, smirking.

Amity bites her lip. “I don’t know, _is_ _it_ going to be a challenge, Noceda?”

They settle down by her bed; Amity sitting on the floor with her legs bent up like tents while Luz sits on the mattress, legs on either side of Amity’s figure.

She hasn’t let many people touch her hair. Really, she doesn’t let anyone touch her at all aside from kids and family. But Luz, being so gentle and light with her fingers. It feels right. Safe. Comfortable. Indulging, even. Leave it up to Amity to long for a certain kind of care only for it to be found in someone who isn’t even from her world.

And, of course, it’s just her luck that this specific someone is leaving by the next full moon.

“Tell me about Earth?” Amity asks, craning her neck up to look at Luz.

“What do you want to know?”

Amity hums. Her eyes flutter shut as she closes her golden eyes to think. “Tell me about your friends on Earth. What are they like?”

Luz’s brushing stops for a moment. “I… I didn’t have any friends.”

“No one?”

“No.”

“Not even an acquaintance...? Or, someone your mom made you be friends with?”

Amity feels Luz’s desire to _bolt_ out of that window and hide. So, Amity turns away and stares at nothing, hoping it will ease Luz’s discomfort. It works, for the most part. She hears Luz shuffle on the bed, reaching forward to grab half of Amity’s hair. “I didn’t exactly fit in. I’m… I don’t know. I’m weird, I’m too much to handle, and I’m not exactly the best kid out there.”

Amity gives her a few more seconds of silence before she replies. “You’re weird here too. I mean, look at you, you’re human. But you have friends here… so what makes Earth different?”

“In the human world, I’m what you would call an average loser, or at least that’s what other kids call me,” Amity takes note of the way Luz’s voice lowers to a murmur. “I have nothing there. I’m not ‘Luz the Human’, I’m just plain old Luz Noceda. People see me, and they walk the other direction. It’s not much the bullying that hurts now; At least here, the bullies actually _see_ you.

Humans like to talk like as if you’re not there. When you confront them, they’ll just deny they ever said anything and laugh the minute you’re not looking. What hurts is the way humans make it feel like you don’t exist.”

She could tell that this isn’t something Luz wants to talk about. So, as soon as Luz finishes tying the tail of her hair, Amity scoots on the floor to fully turn to her. Luz’s head is hung and that’s enough to concern her. “Hey,” Amity lowers her own head so she can see the way Luz’s eyes adjust to see her, “if you don’t want to talk about it, we don’t have to.”

Luz shakes her head, leaning her weight against her arms. “No, I just don’t know how to talk about it. This isn’t something I tell anyone about.”

“Not even your mom?” Amity asks as she stands up to sit on the space next to Luz.

“No. She doesn’t know about,” Luz gestures to the air, “all of this.”

There’s a massive cloud around Luz right now that’s affecting Amity. There is only a few good instances that Amity has cried, and she can count each with both hands. But the way she feels right now is just… pressure. A deep pressure in her chest that makes her ribs bend on themselves. She feels like a burden to everyone. A burden to herself.

Amity has always been aware of how bad loneliness feels like, but Luz is… There are multiple levels to it. Most levels are of fear.

She’s scared of what her mother will say once she finds out about the truth. She’s scared of going back to Earth and going back to her normal, everyday, average life. She’s scared about being lonely again. She’s scared that the Boiling Isles will move on without her.

Amity can go on and on.

In every layer of fear, there’s a layer of inadequacy.

“I get picked on a lot because of her.” On cue, Amity feels something wet on her cheek. Amity raises a hand to touch the tears that started leaving her eyes. _Luz is crying_ , and she’s crying too. “A lot of my classmates t-they bring her up. She’s a nurse and a single mom, so she’s barely home. She’s always working. A-Always on call. She does all of this just to make me happy and,” Luz sniffles.

She doesn’t finish her sentence.

Amity reaches for Luz’s hand right then. “Hey, it’s okay –“

Luz jerks her hand away the minute Amity’s finger touches her. “ _No_ , it’s not okay!”

And then, there was _anger_.

Anger towards herself. Anger towards the people on Earth who picked on her. Anger towards so many things that Amity can’t really keep up with, but she can feel it burning bright. It’s hot enough to light an entire forest. There’s so much in there that’s been building up for a while, and Amity realizes this might be the first time Luz has ever let herself feel vulnerable like this.

She has never seen Luz angry.

And Amity can’t tell if it’s their connection or not, but she’s starting to feel angry for her as well.

“She’s doing so much for me, and what do I do?” Luz growls, “I _lie_ to her. And when I come back, I’m just going to be selfish again and ask her if I can stay in the Boiling Isles instead, where I’m _happier_. She’ll say no, and I go back to Earth, and never see any of my friends again –”

“What if she doesn’t?” Amity speaks over Luz.

“She will –”

“ _Luz_.” Amity speaks softly. “What if she _doesn’t_?”

Luz looks down at her hands and sniffles.

No answer.

So, Amity keeps going.

“What if she doesn’t like Earth either? What if she really won’t mind staying here? If she’s willing to give so much of her time at… at work just to make you happy, what if she’s willing to move here for you?”

“I can’t ask her to just move –”

“But what _if_ ,” Amity reaches for Luz’s hand again, making sure their fingers lace together this time, “being here and seeing you happy will make _her_ happy too?”

Luz looks at her without saying another word, but Amity can feel her emotions dimming down.

Amity’s eyebrows knit together.

“You said she sent you to that summer camp to help you fit in? Do you think she wanted to do that in the first place, or do you think she did it to help you become happier?” Amity isn’t entirely sure what she’s saying anymore, but it seems to be helping Luz. “Imagine how happy she’ll be when she finds out her daughter found the place she truly belongs? A place that won’t force her to become someone she’s not?”

She wishes she can take away Luz’s pain.

Thing is, even though they feel each other’s pain, there’s no way to easily remove it. There’s no permanent cure for that that won’t take time. Any kind of wound, physical or not, takes time to heal.

Luz has been wounded for a while, and this might have been her first time fully acknowledging it. All Amity can do is give her a listening ear and help her fend off her doubts. Instead of negative ‘what ifs’, fill her head with positive ‘what ifs’.

When Luz rolls her tense shoulders to relax, Amity takes the signal. She lifts her free hand to swipe at the tears sliding off of Luz’s cheek. Luz stares at her with big sad eyes before sniffling again. Amity stops herself from snorting when Luz groans.

“I can’t breathe. My nose is stuffed,” Luz complains.

“Yeah,” Amity chuckles, “you kind of clogged mine up too.”

Luz hums, voice hoarse and tired. “We’re going to be late to the festival. I told Gus we’d be there by six.”

Amity looks at the clock. It’s five-fifty-two. It takes about ten minutes to get there by staff. “They can wait. I’ll send them a scroll message to let them know Ed and Emira pranked my shower.”

“Ah, no, no.” Luz is suddenly alert and swiping at the tears on her face. “We can go right now – _ow_.”

Amity flicks her forehead. “Stop pushing yourself, idiot. Take some time to gather yourself.”

“But I’m gathered!”

“No, you’re a mess.”

“I’m not!” Luz whines.

“Luz, just lay on the bed and stop being a brat,” Amity growls in mild annoyance. “I’ll get you water from downstairs.”

Only then did Luz lay down and stick her arms up into the air. “Aww! Amity’s being nice again!”

“ _Noceda_. Knock it off or I’m giving you a cup of ice and you are _waiting_ for it to melt.”

“Okay, okay, sorry.” Luz says, but there’s a laugh that comes with it.

Which is good. More than good. It’s great. Because if Luz is going to be there, loving her in the way no one else has, then Amity will be there to be the anchor Luz never had. Potion or not, she knows for a fact that they’ll be there for each other.

Amity leaves her room and shuts the door behind her before leaning the back of her head against it.

_She’ll say no, and I go back to Earth, and never see any of my friends again._

She’ll let herself revel in this… until it’s time to let go.

(here's another art. thanks for reading <3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im debating whether or not yall deserve fluff or more angst.... hm....... let me think abt it


	9. Day 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey look a cute chapter! totally innocent  
> \---:::: Next update is FRIDAY/MONDAY (18th/21st) :::---
> 
> EDITTT:::: rewrote the ending cus i wrote it drunk LMAO

“You’re late.”

It’s the first thing Luz hears from Willow, who’s standing there with her arms crossed and her tone curious.

Luz has always been a fan of festivals, carnivals, fairgrounds, and the likes. Her mom would take her to various different rides, her favorite being the Spinning Swing. Sometimes, she can’t really pay attention to her mom. Not when there are a million things going on around her.

Everything and everyone around them is loud. The shrill screech from the flying rollercoasters and several other rides are deafening, and honestly, Luz cannot _wait_ to be one of those people. There’s a bunch of festival stalls too, making their own rambunctious noise. People flocked around and about, left and right, and a few kids ran around with tickets in their hands.

But right now, Luz can only focus on the fact that Willow, Gus, Boscha, and Skara were all sitting around each other and eating carnival food.

Luz climbs off of Owlbert before turning to Amity and helping her slide off. She takes the staff into her hands before finally acknowledging Willow.

“Sorry, sorry, we had a bit of a problem.” A meltdown. Luz had a meltdown.

She doesn’t even want to think about it.

The thought that she did it in front of someone was embarrassing enough, but _Amity_? Honestly, Luz thought she would feel a lot more embarrassed and shameful of it, but it’s the complete opposite of that.

She didn’t feel judged, or reprimanded, or humiliated. Amity held her close and took every negative thought in her head and molded it into something a lot more positive. Even after that, Amity didn’t ask her if she’s feeling okay. Amity simply got her a cup of water and distracted her from the mess in her head with a few small talks here, and a few stories there…

“Boscha, Skara? Why are _you_ here?” Amity asks as she crosses her arms.

“I-I was –” Boscha pauses. She’s stuttering. Bocha never stutters, at least not that she knows. “I was looking for Amity. I bumped into Edric and Emira earlier, and they said you’re running around with this lowball clique. So, I interrogated them, and they told me you were on your way.”

Skara’s lips thin, and her eyebrow raises. “We interrogated them? Huh, I thought we just came over and asked.”

“It’s the same thing.”

“No, they’re not.” Willow’s voice sounds disinterested, but there was a hint of playfulness to it.

Boscha’s third eye shoots an angry glare down Willow’s direction. “Don’t be smart with me, half-witch. It’s not like you know the dictionary definition of it.”

Luz knows she meant to make it sting, but Willow stands her ground and sighs heavily. “I do, actually. Interrogate. Verb. To ask questions of someone – especially a suspect or a prisoner – closely, aggressively, or formally.”

There’s a snort from the girl next to Luz. Amity’s smirking, and she looks at Willow with prideful eyes. Luz almost wonders if Amity’s wit and sass started rubbing off on Willow, because there’s something familiar about the way Willow made herself sound like a know-it-all.

Either way, it’s weird to see Willow and Boscha interact.

It’s even weirder to see this whole group chat around and about with each other.

After a few minutes of talking, Luz realizes Skara’s probably then nicest one of the posse, second place goes to Amity; and third place goes to Boscha, who didn’t even bother greeting Luz until Amity basically bullied her into doing it. Boscha’s the grudgby captain with Skara as her right-wing. Amity used to play grudgby as a captain, racking up the longest streak of wins as captain with Boscha besting her for highest _overall_ wins.

She learns a bit more about them.

Gus takes a particular liking to Korks, Skara’s boyfriend. Apparently, Korks wanted to take the illusions track, but his parents forced him to take the Beast Keeping track. Boscha took the potions track because it’s one of the most competitive classes in Hexside, and it’s second hardest to the abomination track. Amity took abomination for reasons Luz already knows.

It’s interesting to see the dynamic of it all. Luz is the odd one out who mixes track which is apparently highly frowned upon since only the emperor can learn more than one.

“Here,” Amtiy hands Luz a tentacle on a stick, and Luz takes a graceless bite out of it. Amity laughs, taking a napkin in hand and using that to wipe Luz’s cheek. “Jeez, slow down. No one’s going to steal that from you. Luz, my tongue hurts. Is… is it burning you?”

“Buf ‘m sho, hungry,” She tries to speak with a full mouth. “showwy”

Amity shakes her head, a small smile playing at the corners of her lips. She taps the napkin a few more times on Luz’s face. “I get it, but I can get you another one if you really want another one. Just blow on it and eat slow, okay? I don’t want you choking on your food or burning your tongue. Honestly, you make me question if humans have table manners.”

Luz gulps the food down. “Each culture’s got its own way of eating.”

“Culture?” Amity tilts her head.

“Like umm….” She flails her hand, trying to grab at the elusive thought in her head. When she catches it, she snaps her fingers. “Covens! Think of it like different kinds of magic, but it’s in the form of eating, or living, or saying ‘hello’.”

Amity nods in understanding. Luz takes another chomp of the tentacle. The witch in front of her chuckles again before patting Luz’s mouth with the same napkin. “Okay, but this isn’t a _human_ way of eating. This is just _you_.”

“I’m shorry” Luz swallows again. “I’m weird, I know.”

“Hmm, no,” Amity’s ears twitch downwards, “I think this is very uniquely you.”

If there was a prize for people who obliviously don’t understand the weight of their words, Amity might just win the award.

In an instance, Luz’s cheeks burn. Hotter than the sun shining down on her face on a hot summer’s day. Amity’s cheeks were pink too, but it isn’t as bad as it used to. In any case, Luz found herself all the more lovestruck at the sight of her crush patting a napkin on her probably chapped lips.

She hadn’t noticed until now, but Amity’s eyelashes are… pretty long.

“Hey, _loveworms_.”

Luz feels static run up her spine when she hears her name called, and her reflexes scream at her to jump away from Amity’s touch. She feels her heart thunder along with the sound of the festival around her. Amity doesn’t flinch away. Instead, she snaps her head to the source of the voice.

“What?” Amity’s voice comes out with a snap of her jaw.

“We’re going to get in line on the rides!” It’s Boscha’s voice. Willow, Skara, Gus, and Korks are already up ahead, chatting and cheering inaudible words.

“You’re coming with us?” Amity asks her with crossed arms. “Having a change of heart about the Luz-ers, Boscha?”

Boscha snarls, her fangs showing right at the edge of her lip. “Not a _chance_. I still think they’re a bunch of washed-up witches, and a human who thinks she can be one of us…” Luz’s oncoming frowns is halted when Boscha scowls and shoves her hands into the pockets of her grudgby letterman, “but, if you’re going with this stupid clique that means I have to wagon-wheel Skara and Korks which I don’t want to do, so _yes_ we’re going with your less-than-worth-it friends.”

Her dark-brown eyes fall towards Amity, and the way Amity tries to hold back her laugh makes Luz’s heart stutter. The way Luz wants to just… keep all of that to herself. Hold Amity’s cheeks and treasure that smile all to herself.

The thing is, Luz can’t.

They go to ride, after ride, after ride.

They started with the Screaming Oaks – a roller coaster ride that’s a horror ride at the same time. On top of being whipped around in the air with nothing but pure magic, a group of beasts weaves around, trying to chomp at you from the rails. Amity sat with Willow, and Luz had the unpleasant time of sitting with Boscha. Skara sat with another girl form the healer coven that they bumped into, while Korks and Gus sat together.

The next ride on their list was something a little tamer – Monster carts! Or really, just… bumper carts where your carts actually light up in flames if it’s hit a little more than it’s supposed to. It’s a team effort of two witches per cart. Boscha and Willow pretty much wiped everyone out, and the two share a _sparing_ compliment to one another after that.

“ _Not bad, half-witch.”_

_“You were awesome, Boscha.”_

Their third ride for the night isn’t much of a ride. Really, it’s pretty much the witch version of drop tower where a witch is sent all the way up into the air and dropped _quickly_ , only to stop an inch before they hit the ground. Amity, Willow, and Gus pass up on this one, and everyone else went.

Honestly, Luz can’t blame Amity for refusing to go on it.

“Alright, boys, gals, and pals. I have to head out,” Gus announces with stupor. “Promised my Dads I’d meet them back by highmoon. They want to go look around the stalls.”

“I need to head out too,” The healer girl explains as she scrolls through her scroll. “It’s been fun, though! We all need to do this again next year. It was nice to finally meet Hexside’s human too.”

She takes Skara into a very tight hug before running off to the direction of the exit. Gus heads somewhere deeper in the fairgrounds, and just like that, the only people left are pretty much most of Hexside’s finest.

“What ride do y’all wanna’ go on?” Korks asks, placing a hand over Skara’s shoulder. “Skara and I were gonna go on the Grometheous.” 

Luz arches a brow. “Grometheous?”

“The tunnel of fear,” Amity answers for her. There’s disinterest in her tone, Luz notices, but she could feel the way Amity’s anxiety also spikes at the question. “Couples go on it to face each other’s fears, just to see how compatible they are. Thing is –”

“It does more harm than good.” Willow finishes Amity’s sentence with a slow nod.

Boscha smirks. “See, Skara? Even four-eyes over here gets it.”

“Hmph,” Skara puffs the left side of her cheek, “you’re such a party pooper. Whatever, Luz and Amity can just come with us!”

“Yes!”

“Absolutely not.”

Luz and Amity both answer at the same time.

Luz groans, but a smile never leaves her lips. “Come on, Amity! It’s not like we don’t already know each other’s fears. I mean, that’s the worst that could happen?”

Honestly, she couldn’t care less about the ride of fear itself.

Just the fact that it’ll just be her and Amity in a ride that Luz knows is the equivalent of the tunnel of love. The tunnel of love is something most kids in her classes gushed over. It’s not really something Luz cared much about but right now, all she can look at is Amity and how much she wants to go into that tunnel with her.

Grom changed everything.

That eccentric dance – how smooth, and right, and natural – changed everything about her relationship with Amity. That might have been the seal they needed to twist off for their friendship to blossom into something a little better.

Something a little more.

And whatever that something is, Luz wants to see it become something great.

She needs to go back to Earth at some point, but…

Luz takes Amity’s hand carefully. “Come on, please? I’ve never gotten on it, and I don’t want to do it with anyone else besides you.”

Amity’s ears twitch again, and the tips of them flare red. She looks at her feet, sighing before looking back up to Luz. “Fine, but only because you’ve never gotten on the stupid thing.”

They get in line a few minutes later, and Luz… well, she didn’t anticipate it to be longer than it was. A twenty-minute wait, and most of the couples ahead and behind them were busy whispering sweet nothings towards each other; some even made out literally right in line, but Luz _way_ averted her eyes from that one. She takes a mental note to never be _that_ disgusting.

Amity spends nearly half of that time scribbling on her journal. Luz chats with Skara, but she makes sure to keep herself close enough to Amity that she can see what the young girl scribbled on the paper. They’re not words – and if they were, Luz wouldn’t have been sneaky. They’re doodles of the group.

She could see one with Boscha and Willow talking to each other; another with Gus, Korks, Skara, and Bow on the monster carts; and the final one is of Luz’s side profile, and Luz playing with Owlbert while they’re in line.

It makes Luz smile.

Sometimes, Amity likes to be quiet and keep to herself. It’s not that she doesn’t enjoy the company around her, it’s more that she feels safe.

Now, she’s doing a quick scribble of Skara talking to Korks.

“So, aside from joining the Emperor’s Coven,” Luz starts, leaning against the railing of the waiting line. Amity stops drawing for a second, “did you ever think about doing something artsy?”

Amity shakes her head, her pen stroking the outline for Skara’s ear. “Part of me did, but I realized that if I want to be the head of the coven, then I need to put all my attention into that. Drawing is just a hobby at this point.”

“Have you gotten on this ride before?” Amity’s eyes snap up from her paper, a yellow spark igniting in the back of those golden eyes. “Y-you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.”

Amity scoffs. She shuts her journal, putting it away into her shoulder bag. “It’s not that,” she says with a gentle smile, “it’s the fact that you wouldn’t believe who I went with if I told you.”

“Wait, wait, so you _have_ gotten on it?” She straightens herself up as soon as she hears her say that. “Now you _have_ to tell me who it is.”

Amity smiles. “You’ve met her.”

“I have?”

“You have. She was even in our little group today.”

“Willow?” Well, that’s a pretty believable guess.

But Amity shakes her head. “No. She’s not as nice.”

“Skara?” Luz guesses, ignoring the way Skara said ‘what’ in the background.

Amity’s smirking. “Getting warmer, Noceda.”

“The healer girl?”

“Her name’s Bow, and no. Not her,” Amity leans a little closer towards Luz, something proud drips from her tone of voice. “This girl’s in the potions track.”

“ _BOSCHA?”_ Luz pretty much yells. She doesn’t care when half the people in line move to stare at her. “You… you went with _Boscha_?”

“Wow, you three guesses later and you actually figured it out,” Amity rolls her eyes. “Yes, Boscha.”

“ _Oooooh,_ ” Skara’s body physically cannot contain her excitement as she bounces on her heel, “Ami, can I _please_ tell this story” Amity gestures at her with a wave of her hand. “Okay, okay, so, Boscha had this _big_ crush on Amity a long time ago, and y’know, Boscha gets really, really, flustered when she’s crushing on a girl. Totally _not_ Boscha behavior. On the Bludgeoning Festival, she took amity over here into the tunnel.”

“Did they fail?” Luz asks with wonder in her eyes.

“Well, yes, but that doesn’t matter because clueless little Amity over here thought it’s all a friend thing. So, imagine her surprise when Boscha tells the whole school they’re dating, and imagine how embarrassed and _mad_ Boscha got when Amity cleared up the air,” Skara winks.

Amity shrugs. “Not my fault Boscha assumed me being nice to her was me liking her.”

It felt like a ghostly weight fell on Luz’s shoulder right then.

Amity’s nice… when she wants to be. She stays out of trouble, and she never strays from the straight path she had paved out for herself. She sticks to where she’s supposed to go, never wondering outside of her comfort zone. There are some times, however, that Amity will dig her heel to the ground and help someone out. It’s rare, but it _does_ happen.

When it does happen, Luz takes notice. From sneakily giving a student the pencil that had slipped off their desk, to taking time out of her schedule just to spend time w Luz… Catching her in the act always puts a smile on Luz’s face.

Luz likes her – _that_ she knows for a fact.

But does Amity feel the same, or is she pulling at nothing just like Boscha?

They get to the front of the line, and Skara and Korks head for the first seat. Amity and Luz take the one that’s about fifteen seconds behind them.

“Nervous?” Luz asks as the ride slides forward ever so slowly.

Amity chews her lips nervously. “Remember Grom? When you saw your fear?”

“Y-yeah.”

“I couldn’t see your fear. All I saw was Grom turning into a weird shape, but I didn’t know who or what you were scared off until you told me.” Amity explains, her fingers drumming against the seat of the ride. Luz could see her cautious eyes glow as they slip further into the tunnel. “Grom shows your fear to you and only you. You couldn’t see mine, right?”

“No, I couldn’t,” Luz rolls her shoulder. “It was just… this weird black thing with eyes.”

Amity nods. “In this ride, we’ll be able to see each other’s fear the way the other person sees it. So yes, I’m nervous.”

“Is… is your fear still the same?” Luz asks, feeling something uncomfortable start to whisper against her shoulder. It’s pure panic, but it’s not just hers. It’s Amity’s.

Both of their heightened emotions are working together to make this a lot more disturbing.

“No.” Her answer is plain and simple.

Right before Luz could say anything about it, the ride grinds to a halt.

From the water below them, a shape rises to glare directly at Luz’s face. It turns into the distinguishable shape of her mom, looking at her in a way that would always make Luz extremely guilty. But… her eye sockets… are… they’re empty. Just pits of black that match the darkness of the tunnel. It’s devoid of emotion, but Luz certain feels _every nerve_ in her body tense up.

 _“What do you mean ‘witches’, mija?”_ Her mother’s voice thunders and reverberates around the tunnel. _“Your weird stories aren’t real. Next summer, you are going to a disciplinary camp. Lo siento, mija. Tu debes aprender.”_

Before Luz could even react, Amity takes her hand and holds them.

“Hey,” Amity whispers, scooting closer to Luz, “breathe.”

She hadn’t even realized she was holding her breath until then. So she exhales and inhales again.

Luz’s whole torso is turned towards this figure at this point, and Amity slots her face on the space between her cheek and her shoulder. Amity’s skin is hot in contrast to Luz’s skin, and the difference is enough to shock Luz out of the fear’s hold, but it isn’t enough to shake the feeling off.

“Hm,” She hears Amity hum. “I see the resemblance.”

“What?” Luz leans her cheeks against Amity’s head.

“You and your mom. Same eyes, same hair, same lips, same eyebrows… You’re a little lighter, but,” Amity chuckles, “you’re both pretty good looking.”

Okay, that got Luz to laugh and move away from Amity but never letting go of her hand. “amity, did you just call my mother hot?”

“What? No, I’m just saying I see the resemblance!” Amity scowls, shoving Luz back. Her face is red.

Luz laughs, and the ride chugs forward.

Now, it’s Amity’s turn to freeze.

Luz watches the figure take shape, never turning away from it. When it takes shape, it’s… it’s Amity.

She’s sitting by her usual spot on the windowsill with a book in hand – the human version of Romeo and Juliet – looking out into the massive grounds of Blight manor.

Before Luz could open her mouth, the figure looks towards Luz with sullen gold eyes and a smile. “ _Must be in my head,”_ the fear version of Amity laughs so sadly, “ _you can’t actually be here_.”

“Luz,” the Amity next to her swiftly snaps her head towards Luz, releasing her hold on Luz’s hands. “plug your ears, please.”

Luz starts, “Amity –”

“ _I told you how I felt and you left and never came back.”_ Luz freezes, and the Amity next to her looks away from Luz and looks to the water before slowly wrenching her eyes shut.

Something rotten swirls in Luz’s stomach, and it’s completely foreign.

This is Amity’s fear.

Luz tries to get her hands to cover her ears just as Amity instructed her to do, but the way Grom Amity is staring at her it just… freezes her on the spot. “ _I liked you_ ,” Grom Amity says in a strained voice, “ _and you liked me… and we never saw each other again._ ”

Amity’s fear is losing Luz.

Luz’s brows knit together. She takes a cautious glance at Amity whose eyes are sealed shut.

Amity likes Luz.

She... she feels the same?

When the fake Amity melts away, Luz forces herself to make a split-second decision. Luz lifts her hands and covers her ears.

She sees Amity sigh before peeling her eyes open... and when she looks up to see Luz—

“Luz,” her voice is careful as she takes her hands off of Luz’s ears, “you…”

“I didn’t hear anything,” She lies through her teeth, but... “If you don’t want to tell me, then I don’t get to know. I’d… rather hear it from you instead of y’know… a stupid festival ride.”

Maybe lying about some things? is okay. Especially if it means protecting the person you don’t want to hurt.

Amity’s brows knit together, and the bad feeling in Luz’s stomach flushes away. Amity throws her arms around Luz, and Luz treasures the way Amity breathes a sigh of relief.

“Thank you,” Amity whispers as the ride slowly chugs towards the light at the end of the tunnel. When Amity pulls away, Luz could see her eyes swimming with… _everything_ good.

 _Everything_.

It fills Luz with so much warmth, but she’s not too sure she deserves it.

“You’re welcome,” Luz says with a forced grin.

What a mess.

(Art made by [@PokeGothGf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PokeGothGf/pseuds/PokeGothGf) here on Ao3 <3)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to tell yall.... if you answer that u want angst? There's no comfort. I'm taking it up a notch.
> 
> Translations:  
> Lo siento – I’m sorry  
> Tu debes aprender – you have to learn


End file.
